The Heart of the Beast
by havahp
Summary: Lily Potter gave birth to twins. And just like that, the universe's original trajectory was torn to pieces and made anew. James and Harry Potter are both believed dead after the Dark Lord is vanquished, but Bellatrix Lestrange's son, a boy with black hair and green eyes, brings such assumptions into question. What does this new timeline mean for the wizarding world?
1. Chapter 1

At number 4 Privet Drive, Vernon Dursley sat on his couch. His large legs resting on the ottoman in front of him and his work clothes had been changed for a pair of comfy grey pajamas. While normally he would be very happy to unwind after a long day selling drills, watching whatever was on the telly, today he couldn't quite get the same amount of joy over berating the female newscaster on her _much too showy outfit, surely not fit for television! _On the morning of November 1st, the muggle had no inkling that the day was going to be anything out of the ordinary. And for the large part, it wasn't. The large, burly man had gone about his day much like the days before him, waking up next to his wife Petunia and heading to Grunnings in the hope of overshadowing all his co-workers in the monthly sales data report.

However, it was a multitude of different, _strange _occurrences that prevented him from enjoying his day, these mostly concerning small groups of oddly dressed people on the streets of London.

"Oh don't worry, dear muggle! Wonderful day today, isn't it?" One of the unusually dressed men had cried when Vernon accidentally bumped into him during his lunch break. The man wore a long, pointy hat that almost fell right off his head and onto the pavement when Vernon's rotund belly made contact with his back. The man had simply skipped off after his remark, not even giving Vernon the time to mutter any variation of an insincere apology, some bizarre happiness annoyingly obvious in his demeanor despite the mishap.

"It's such a shame what happened though. To the Potters…" He heard another whisper on his way back to his office afterwards. The voice carried out from some woman standing in a small group to her equally odd acquaintances, all of them dressed in long robes. That one in particular had given him pause, remembering his dear wife Petunia's sister. _Hadn't she married a Potter?_

"Petunia, dear," he said carefully, remembering his experiences earlier in the day. He glanced over to his wife on the other side of the couch, keeping in mind how much she hated it whenever her sister was brought up.

"Yes, Vernon?" She replied, eyes remaining glued to the television in front of them. Petunia's face was relaxed, basking in the few hours of peace they had together that evening. Vernon figured he could risk mentioning the sister, taking his wife's good mood into account.

"That sister of yours, she married a man named Potter, didn't she?" Vernon asked hesitantly. Petunia's head shot up, immediate suspicion and annoyance replacing the peace on her thin face.

"Yes, what of it?" She spat, and Vernon cringed at her tone.

"Ah, nothing, my love. It's nothing." He drew back, not wishing to antagonise her. He knew how much she truly despised her sister. He approved of it greatly, in fact. Nobody should have to be associated with freaks and undesirables. Occasionally, the couple would even receive mail from her sister, which Petunia made a great show of throwing straight into the trash every time. And it was just as well, Vernon had mused to himself. Who knows what kind of nonsense that woman could be getting up to?

_It was only a coincidence _, he thought. Potter was a common enough name. Those people, in those queer robes… it must have been some religious day he didn't know about.

_Yes, _he reassured himself, turning back to the television. That was it. Some strange foreign holiday. Maybe those people in the city were immigrants, or from some fringe religion. They must have been.

Shortly after the couple exchanged words, the news segment moved on to describe an abnormal rise in the number of owl sightings all over the country. After, it discussed a frankly inexplicable light show in Kent. The weirdness of the day continued to pile up, and Mr Dursley was glad it was almost over so that he could start the next day anew. Still, the man had stray thoughts about it all as he attempted to go to sleep in the house's master bedroom.

_Something is wrong. _He thought to himself as he moved from his left side to his right in his bed. _Something freakish _.

No sooner had he produced the last thought had a large banging sounded at the front door. Both occupants of the dark room shot up in bed, eyes wide open and fearful.

"What is that?" Petunia gasped, turning on a lamp and flinching behind her husband as he stumbled to the bedroom door like a startled elephant.

"Who knocks at this hour?" Vernon exclaimed, voice loud and angry, eyeing the alarm clock. It's small hand fell to the right of twelve.

"Go see who it is!" His wife pleaded, hiding behind his large figure as he opened the door to peer into the hallway. A baby's scream erupted in the bedroom next to them, Dudley also waking up from the noise. Vernon marched quickly back to the bed in the master bedroom, bending his body down with a breathless grunt to fetch an item from underneath. As he advanced down the stairs, shotgun in hand, Petunia ran into the second bedroom, simpering placations directed at the fussing babe.

The banging had not ceased the entire time Vernon plodded down the staircase. "WHO'S THERE?" He shouted as he reached the front door. As abruptly as the noises had begun, they ceased, the sound of only a stiff silence filling up the house.

"WHO'S KNOCKING AT ONE IN THE BLOODY MORNING?" Vernon shouted. "I have a gun! Don't think you can test me!" He raised the weapon with a shaky hand towards the door.

For a few seconds, there was silence. Then, only a soft _click _sounded as one of the door locks rotated, untouched. Vernon stood, shaken and confused, as the second lock on the door opened as well, almost as if a spirit had come forth to do so.

With no more resistance, the door swung open, a _whoosh _of air hitting the scared muggle in the face as the wood banged up against the inside wall. Outside stood a single man, with long, greasy black hair and a face schooled into a severe expression. Most horrifying to Vernon about his appearance was the man's attire, a long, swooping black robe with sleeves that almost covered his hands.

"Apologies for the late hour, Dursley." He said. As he spoke, Vernon's face tightened and he instinctively pulled the head of the gun towards the stranger's apathetic face.

"Leave at once, sir! Or I shall be forced to shoot!" He hollered, not even caring about what the neighbours might think about all the commotion.

"Don't point that thing at me, _muggle _." The man sneered. With a swift movement from his hand, the gun had been pulled from Vernon's sweaty palms. The muggle gasped and spluttered as it clanged to the floor. Vernon realised for the first time that the man was holding a strange, long stick in his hand, peeking out from underneath his sleeve.

"My name is Severus Snape." The stranger said simply. "Is your wife also here? Her sister…" the man hesitated, swallowing, "wants to see her most urgently."

"Of course_ Lily Potter _needs to see her most urgently!" Vernon spat as his eyes moved frantically between the harsh man and the gun on the floor, tempted to pick it back up again despite the obvious danger. The thudding of feet bounding down the staircase echoed through the house, and Petunia Dursley emerged beside him, a whining toddler balanced on her hip.

"_You. _" She hissed, holding Dudley firmly with one hand and pointing the other sharply at the mysterious man. "What are _you _doing here?" The man, Snape, scoffed at Petunia's words.

"Petunia." He said, his face joyless and grim. "There has been a… terrible incident with your sister and her family, and I have been sent to collect you. Lily Potter has requested you by name." The man finished, eyes boring into the couple in a way that unnerved Vernon greatly.

For a moment, the three simply stood at the entrance to the house, Petunia Dursley staring unblinkingly up at the stange, sallow-faced man, and Vernon utterly stumped over what to do about this new development. Eventually she stood aside to let the man in, scowling all the while. Vernon froze in shock as the man marched straight into their living room, closing the front door behind him.

"What would the neighbours think if they woke up to this?" Petunia muttered to Vernon softly as she noticed his outraged look. While Vernon could agree that the neighbourhood scandal would be damn near _mortifying _, he did _not _approve of such a monster being let into the house! Vernon glanced down once again at the shotgun on the floor, but did not reach down to pick it up as he observed his wife's own growing sour expression.

"I… know him." She said hesitantly. "He was a poor boy that grew up in the house next to us. He won't harm us." With that, she followed Severus Snape into the living room. Dumbfounded, Vernon could only follow with a final regretful look towards the gun.

_Well… if Petunia thinks… _he thought, trailing off as he put one step in front of the other, adrenaline slowly seeping out of his body. _Maybe I'll trust her for this one, for now…_

Severus Snape went to sit stiffly on a floral armchair when he entered the room, the overhead light turning on untouched at another wave of the stick he carried.

"I'll have none of that at my house, thank you." Petunia snapped as the couple followed him. Dudley started squirming in her arms, clearly cross with being awoken at the late hour if his high pitched squeals were to mean anything. Petunia took a few moments to quieten him back down again, his eyes growing droopy in her arms as she took a seat on the sofa. Vernon sat shakily down next to her, still feeling a healthy dose of fear of the stranger in their house, moreso with his lack of weaponry on top. His wife had told him about her sister's… freakish lifestyle, and he had even met the woman and Mr Potter briefly. But this was his first time ever witnessing the ungodly witchcraft with his own eyes.

"What could be so urgent that you must come here in the middle of the night?" Petunia demanded.

"Lily Potter has been unconscious since Halloween night, and awoke some hours ago." Snape said. Petunia's eyes widened in response shortly before her expression shifted to one of smugness.

"Some stupid magic trick finally gone wrong, huh?" She huffed in amusement. "That woman always thought she was so talented and perfect, ever since we were children. Hope that takes her down a peg." The housewife even laughed a little under her breath, seemingly uncaring of her sister's predicament. Snape glowered at her.

"The Potter family was attacked in their home by a powerful wizard, the likes of which only seen once a generation." Snape continued, the sneer on his face at Petunia's words never leaving it. "Both James Potter and one of their sons, Harry Potter, was killed."

Petunia froze and an unreadable expression, even for Vernon, crossed her face. She seemed to have nothing to say this time.

"While we do not know exactly what happened." Snape continued. "We know that, somehow, the dark lord was vanquished that night. Lily Potter was found injured, but alive, in their home, and Robert Potter survived in a very lucky show of accidental magic in the nursery. The entire top floor of the house was destroyed."

The man shot up from the armchair. "There is a car outside that will take you to where Lily and her surviving son are located. It is close by. She has requested your presence, _Mrs Dursley _." He repeated once more, the emphasis appearing to contain some hidden meaning, before leaving the room.

For several moments, Vernon and Petunia sat still, not moving a muscle as they both processed his words separately. While Vernon knew of his wife's deep hatred for her younger sister, the shock on her face was obvious. No biting remarks or sneers, no 'she deserved it's or 'that's what she get's came from her anymore. Vernon went to open his mouth, but Petunia shushed him loudly before beginning to speak.

Ten minutes later, the small family emerged from the living room. Dudley was still asleep in Petunia's arms, dozing happily with his mouth slightly open. Severus Snape stood in the entryway, back stiff and face expressionless as he watched them approach him. Vernon slowed down as they grew closer, hands rising defensively to his chest as if he was some wild animal that could attack at any time.

"We're going in the car." Petunia said dismissively as she swung the front door open, still in her pyjamas as she strolled down the footpath leading to an impressive, black BMW. Inside, a lone driver sat in the front seat. Vernon wondered whether or not he was another _freak _as he sat his body down onto the smooth leather seats. The car sped off immediately, and Vernon was infinitely grateful Severus Snape hadn't joined them.

"You don't suppose the freak will rob us?" He asked his wife worriedly as the car left Privet Drive. "You said he was poor."

"No." Petunia said, voice quiet. "No, I think it'll be fine." The couple exchanged no more words.

The car ride didn't take more than a half an hour. Still, it was long enough for Vernon, yawning the whole way and thinking mostly of having to get up for work the next morning. He had grumbled endlessly about all the reasons they shouldn't have gotten in the car. But the bloody woman hadn't listened to one of them!. He was extremely unwilling to leave his gun behind, but had no choice after the dangerous glares both the man _and_Petunia had thrown him on his way out the door. And there was no way he'd leave his wife to the freaks, alone!

Vernon looked at the black night sky through the car window, a thin waxing crescent moon the only light in the gaping darkness above. He hoped that the visit would be brief, so they could finally move on as a family and never see that wretched sister ever again. He wished privately to himself that she had died, too. But alas, Petunia had insisted despite how much she had claimed to hate her.

After a few neighbourhoods went past, the driver stopped the vehicle next to a crisp, freshly mowed lawn. Looking outside, Vernon saw a neighbourhood much like their own, if not a bit fancier (though he would never openly admit this). Dim street lights dotted the footpath and classy residences filled up the street, each identical to their neighbours. Outside the house closest to the car stood a single woman. She approached them as they ventured out onto the completely benign-looking street around them.

"Hello," she greeted. "My name is Emmeline Vance. I'm a friend of Lily's. Come this way." She began walking to the house in front of them, the only one in the street still with several lights on at that time of night. Vernon hesitantly followed at his wife's lead, not quite knowing what to expect. It certainly wasn't a _normal _house in a _normal _street like this. He wouldn't have expected these freaks to stay in such a clean, even _nice _, place. Maybe some bizarre, monstrous house atop a hill, or a treehouse in a forest where they could jump around like fairies and practice all their hippie magical spells. Besides, hadn't that man said she'd been attacked? Who wouldn't have had her in a hospital!

These people really are something else.

The family entered, Dudley awakening again and beginning to fidget as the woman opened the front door (Vernon wished he had demanded they wait until morning, at least then they could've gotten a sitter for the poor tyke). The place had sparse furnishings, opening up onto a sizable empty sitting room and a staircase directly in front of them.

"Just go up the stairs." Vance said, before closing the door to the house behind them. The pair, having no other option, trudged up the wooden staircase. As Vernon reached the top he found himself in yet another sitting room, but this one was smaller and a bit more homey. It was also occupied. On a plush armchair one old man sat alone, with a strange long cap on his head that Vernon had come to associate with these people, and a beard so long he could've tucked it into a belt. The dwelling seemed completely silent, save for Dudley, who had started to whimper, no doubt frustrated and sleepy.

Vernon couldn't help but continue to stare at the old man. Most uncommon was the man's choice of attire, a bright purple coat with little star patterns etched into it, covering every inch of the ridiculous cloth. Vernon was overwhelmingly reminded of a nightgown, thinking about how the man that banged on their door and the woman that led them inside at least had made less obnoxious colour choices. He wanted to say something as he remembered Severus Snape, maybe let this old man know just how much Vernon liked to be woken up by such a commotion . They would probably be the talk of the neighbourhood for weeks! However, he remembered the conversation they'd had before Petunia walked out of their house, and stayed his lips for now.

"Hello, Mr and Mrs Dursley." The man greeted as he noticed them, standing up. He pointed to a hallway that ran down the middle of the floor. "You will find Lily Potter in the first door to the right. Apologies for barging in on the three of you up so late. Mrs Potter was most beside herself upon awakening, and Severus was quite insistent."

At those words, the man quirked his lip a bit, but the smile did not reach his eyes. Not even close.

"D-Dumbledore?" Petunia stuttered, completely ignoring the fussing babe in her arms. Vernon looked back and forth between the man and his wife, feeling utterly out of his depth. Petunia knew this man, as well as Snape. How many freaks had she consorted with, and never told him about? Vernon felt more than a little betrayed.

"Take Dudders for me." Petunia only said, passing their son into his hands before walking down the hallway without another word.

Vernon stood with his son in the seemingly normal house, with only yet _another _strange subscriber to his sister-in-laws secret society for company. The man approached him quietly, almost appearing to glide over towards the muggle in a way that had Vernon edging back a few steps, face contorting in displeasure and shock.

"Do not approach me, stranger!" Vernon furiously whispered at him, in fear of alerting anyone else potentially hiding in the other rooms of the house. Dudley started wailing in his arms. He awkwardly tried to rock him, not use to being alone with his son in such circumstances. Fat globs of tears and snot trailed down the toddler's cheeks.

"Is it alright if I hold him?" Dumbledore asked, arms reaching out. "I daresay young children are often quite taken to me. I suspect it's the beard." A soft noise came from the hallway and Vernon looked to see that the first door on the right had been left slightly ajar.

Very hesitantly, he let the old man take Dudley, who instantly stopped fussing. The little boy still made faint sniveling noises as Dumbledore started rocking him back and forth. Looking a bit more perked up than he had been before, the old man walked back to the armchair. Vernon turned his vision again to the door, walking over to the hallway and placing a meaty hand on the doorknob.

"This can't be happening, Petunia!" A woman sobbed from inside. Vernon froze in place, his hand quickly going back to his side. While he couldn't see the occupants of the bedroom, he heard the sounds of bedsheets moving and a woman's soft cries. He took a step back, resting his back against the wall next to the door, glancing back at the old man on the armchair nervously. He seemingly wasn't paying Vernon any attention, eyes only on a drowsy Dudley.

"I know, I know." His wife's voice filtered through the doorway. "It's okay, I'm here."

"What they're saying… it can't be…" Lily Potter choked out, bedsheets ruffling more as she cried.

"It's okay, Lily." Petunia's voice said again. "You're going to be alright." There was a brief pause where Vernon heard nothing but a woman quietly sobbing into something. A pillow, maybe, or Petunia herself.

"That Dark Lord you've been hiding from…" Petunia continued hesitantly. "He's gone now, right? That's what that Snape boy said. That means the world is safe now, right?"

_Dark Lord? _Was that what that Snape man had called him? Vernon wasn't sure.

"I don't care about that! God, I just want to go back to the way it was! When… when James was… oh my god and _Harry _…" The woman made an outraged, desperate noise, almost animalistic in her sorrow. Vernon stood, transfixed.

"A-Are you sure he's not just, unconscious somewhere? Moony! If the house really is so… you need to _look for him! _"

"I'm so sorry, Lily." A third voice, a man, spoke. "There were no remains… but Dumbledore-"

"FUCK DUMBLEDORE!" The woman shouted. Vernon looked again towards the old man holding Dudley in the sitting room. His face was expressionless as he watched the babe. _Man must be half deaf to not have caught that _, Vernon thought.

"...The fiendfyre." The man stuttered, voice low. "Merlin, they say it was a miracle Rob survived at all."

"Oh, my baby boy." Lily Potter said, voice high and shaky. Mr Dursley had never been in the same room with someone that seemed so beside themselves with grief, and he was infinitely glad he hadn't been subjected to such.

"Lily, I'm sorry, but you need to listen to what we're saying to you." The man said. A bed creaked. "The wizarding world... it's gone nuts. Everyone thinks that you did it. That you… _defeated _You-Know-Who."

"I told Dumbledore a thousand times, I didn't kill him." Lily hiccuped. "He hit me with some s-spell. It was so fast. All I could do was tell James to take the boys and r-run… I thought I was dead…"

"You wrote that this man was after you in particular, I remember. Maybe it was only James he was after?" Petunia said. Vernon's eyes widened from where he stood. _She wrote. She wrote to Petunia. And Petunia read-_

"Dumbledore told me something when you were asleep." The man whispered, breaking Vernon's chain of had to strain his ears to hear the next words. "He said that he thinks _Rob _did it. I don't understand. How could Rob have…"

Everyone in the room went deathly silent. For several seconds, Vernon heard not a single noise.

"My baby." Was all Lily Potter said, at first. Then, "Moony. Give me my baby."

At the sound of some more shuffling, followed by footsteps, Vernon jumped away from the wall like he'd been shocked. A young, shaggy-looking man opened the door by the time Vernon had made it halfway back to the sitting room. His eyes, red and puffy, made contact with Vernon for only a brief second before he made his way into another room. He emerged a few minutes later with a sleeping toddler around Dudley's age in his arms before making his way back. He closed the door completely shut behind him, and Vernon knew he would likely no longer be able to effectively eavesdrop.

"It's not very polite to do that, you know." The old man from the sitting room, Dumbledore, piped up. Vernon grumbled, his offhand assumptions about the man's senility being thrown out the window. He plodded back to the sitting room and sat himself down onto an armchair. There, the muggle thought for a time, eyes travelling back and forth between the hallway, and the old man.

Vernon watched him suspiciously as he held onto Dudley, suddenly wondering why he had even given the freak permission to hold his son in the first place. He took the man's attire in once more, now worried that he had another of those god awful magic sticks hidden away somewhere, too. He stared at his sleeping son, completely relaxed into those freakish purple robes.

_Why has Petunia forced us to come here? _He asked himself, angrily. Now his son was _sleeping _on a wizard man's lap! This was _not _supposed to be happening!

Although his wife had won over his sympathies in coming here to see what her wretched sister wanted, Vernon was beyond unnerved by the strange conversation he had overheard. _Spells? A Dark Lord? _He knew Petunia's sister was a freak, but he didn't realise it was _this _bad. This abnormal. And now he had let one of them hold his son, like it was nothing! Like he could be _trusted! And Petunia had read the letters she swore she had thrown away!_

Making up his mind, Vernon launched himself from the armchair, marching up to the old man.

"Give me my son back." He ordered, voice cold and biting. "I demand you take us home at once!"

"Of course, Mr Dursley." Dumbledore stood instantly, height towering over Vernon (making him ever more outraged) as he handed the toddler back. "Will we be fetching Mrs Dursley?"

"No!" He barked. "Take us home, or I will… call the police!" _Just because Petunia wants to talk to this crazy sister doesn't mean Dudders and I need to!_

Not long after, the man departed in a black SUV back towards Number 4, Privet Drive, only a screaming babe in arms. And with that, the first crack in the Dursley marriage had been made.

* * *

First of all, thanks for clicking on my story! I've got this crossposted on ao3, so if you see it there under hava_hp, don't be alarmed. For some reason when I uploaded the first several chapters of this story, the website put random spaces in before/after random italicised words. I've scanned the first block of chapters I uploaded and got all the ones I could find, but several are bound to have slipped through. Sorry! I'll be posting updates here and on ao3 at the same time so don't worry about having to shift to that website if you don't wish to.


	2. Chapter 2

The city was an active one, filled to the brim with both young and old. Men in shorts and baseball caps donned cameras around their necks, and women next to them gestured wildly at paper maps. Occasionally, a _ristorante _would spill out onto the streets with its umbrellas and tables, its smells welcoming the tourists.

"_Cucciolo_, you're in so much trouble! Hurry up, now!" An old woman, hair grey and curled atop her head, called to a small boy behind her as she signalled for him to hurry up.

The boy, no more than seven or eight, held his head down the entire way. He had a heavy pout on his lip, clearly most displeased at his predicament. The pair walked for a few minutes through the busy streets in silence, the woman pulling slightly on his hand as she grabbed for it, before a tall man bumped head first into the pair.

The boy tumbled, gravity working against his small frame as his body hit the pavement. He glared up at the man, who appeared slightly sweaty from the summer heat. The boy quickly hoisted himself back up while the old woman huffed, crossing her arms.

"You should say sorry!" The boy exclaimed, pointing a finger up at the figure towering above him as the man's eyes boggled.

"Wow! You speak English! Can you tell me where the Santa Maria station is?" He asked, completely ignoring the boy's statement. The boy scrunched his face up at the man's strange accent. The way he pronounced his vowels sounded familiar, but the boy didn't know enough about the language to know where to place it.

"I don't know." Was all the boy said. The man grumbled slightly. The boy looked back at the old woman, not knowing whether or not he was allowed to continue talking to the man.

"Well, thanks anyway." The man continued in English. "Damn, never thought Italian kids knew English. Cool scar by the way, little fella!"

Without another word, the lanky stranger departed back into the crowd, leaving the young boy feeling a bit baffled.

"_Britannico_…" the old woman sighed, placing her hand around the boy's again as they began walking once more. "Tourists aren't bad, not really, just a little dense sometimes. " She spoke in soft Italian.

"He asked about Santa Maria… why couldn't you have told him where it was?" The boy asked.

"And help someone who knocked my grandson over, not even saying sorry after?" The old woman huffed. "It's best you pretend to not know English, Matteo. Otherwise all the tourists will bother you. I'm proud of how far you've come along, though. English can be quite a bothersome tongue, at times."

"I don't want to keep learning English, though. It's dumb." The boy bemoaned, growing bold and tugging slightly in an attempt to have her release his hand.

"Matteo." She warned. "Don't forget you're still in trouble." The pair finally stopped in a smaller side street. The street contained only a few shoppers in it, but the noise from the main thoroughfares nearby still carried through to them.

"Now, what are you here for?" The old woman said as she released his hand, her face looking the vision of tough and stoical despite the smile lines evident in her aged skin.

"I didn't do it!" The boy protested. "I really don't know how they got there, Nonna! I swear!"

"You're saying the sweets just appeared magically in your pockets, _cucciolo_?" The woman said, the pet name making the child feel even more nervous with her tone.

"Yes. I didn't even know they were there until we got home. I promise I didn't take them!"

The woman sighed slowly, her facial expression changing from stoical to disappointed. The child's eyes watered at the sight, sniffing as he maintained his innocence.

"I'm disappointed at you, Matteo." She said, crouching down to better look him in the eye. His eyes were covered in tears at this point, liquid beginning to spill down his cheeks. "I thought you were not the kind of little boy that would steal. No grandson of mine should _ever _steal. Promise me you won't ever do such a thing again?"

The child snivelled, hands wringing together as he realised he had no hope of convincing his grandmother, to his great frustration. "I promise I won't ever steal." He said, lip quivering.

"Good. No television for two weeks, and that's just the start of it." The woman said, shushing the boy as he started to complain. "And now, you will go back inside, return what you took, and apologise to Mr and Mrs Mori."

"Can't you just do it, Nonna?" The boy begged.

She crossed her arms, lips fashioning into a thin line, and little Matteo knew there was no more room for argument. With only a small huff, he trudged dejectedly into the sweet shop.

"You cannot run from your problems, _cucciolo_." She called at his retreating back.

Matteo's mood was still sour after they sat down for dinner much later that day.

"I really didn't take them Nonna. I don't wanna go to bed." He huffed after she instructed him to return to his room early that evening.

"What I do for you is for your own good, little one. Now _go _. Don't make me raise my voice." She said as she began cleaning up the table. The sound of little feet stomping up the stairs travelled to her ears, followed by a door slamming. The grandmother shook her head to herself while she cleaned a china plate.

_It really was most unusual behaviour for Matteo _. She thought to herself as she worked the soap suds into the leftover sauce. _Perhaps he really thinks he didn't do it?_

It was an unlikely event, she considered. Children stealing sweets from sweet shops wasn't that uncommon, and the owners had been very understanding about it. She only wished he would grow up to be a good person, maybe so his pare-

She dropped a plate back into the water, the soapy water spilling out and seeping into the bottom of her blouse as the china _clanged _against the metal sink. Her brain felt overcome by fogginess, and the meal she had just eaten felt like it wanted to come back up for a second.

_I must be tired. _The old woman thought, picking up the plate once more and placing it atop the dish rack. _Accidenti _, _what has come over me?_

Luckily for her, the odd feelings quickly passed as she soon forgot about whatever it was she was thinking about. She pulled the plug on the sink, the water disappearing down the drain with a soft frothing sound.

It was much later that night when the little boy in a small bedroom upstairs was awoken to the sound of a woman's shriek.

Matteo flinched upwards, black hair a mess on his head and heart pounding in his chest. The sky had gone black outside the window, a dark stain washing over the city of Florence. A few seconds after the scream, the sound of glass shattering downstairs travelled up to his bedroom. He could make out muffled pleas from his grandmother, but not what she was saying.

Without thinking, the boy raced to the noise, kicking his bedsheets off and tumbling down the stairs.

"No! Matteo, go! Run!" His grandmother shouted as he reached the bottom step. The sight in front of him made the little boy freeze in shock.

His Nonna sat on her knees, shaky hands reaching up beside her head in terror as two dark figures stood nearby. One, a woman with long messy hair, pointed a curved stick a few centimeters from his grandmother's head. The second, a man with similarly ragged locks, loomed with a dark look on his face.

"Hurry up," he said to the woman in the same language Matteo often heard from the tourists. "I'll get him."

With those words, he prowled his way closer to Matteo. Matteo's Nonna began crying as he came closer to the boy.

"Please, I'll do whatever you want! Just do not hurt my grandson!" She cried, hands shaking in terror in the air.

"He's not your grandson, you stupid_ puttana_!" The woman growled in Italian, accent thick and foreign as she pressed the stick against the old lady's temple.

The man grabbed one of Matteo's shoulders, the force of the hand causing the boy to stumble and almost fall. Matteo panicked and attempted to run away, but was immediately cut short by the ragged man's ironclad grip.

"He's grown a lot, hasn't he?" The man said, bending down slightly as he forced Matteo's chin up with his other hand. Matteo remembered how his grandmother had told him never to talk to strangers, that they could be dangerous. This man looked like the most dangerous stranger Matteo had ever seen, a twisted smile covering his face under a thick beard as his dark eyes stared into him. The boy felt his pajama pants grow warm during his terror, a thin liquid seeping out of a pant leg as he shook like a leaf.

The man glanced down at Matteo's body, grin expanding as a booming cackled released from his lungs.

"If you think we're scary, kid." He hissed, inching his face closer to Matteo, who felt tears fall down his young cheeks. "Try being one of us."

The man then turned to face the other stranger again, keeping a painful grip on Matteo all the while. The woman's grip tightened on the wooden stick in her hands, and she gleefully shouted something Matteo couldn't understand as she pointed it directly at his grandmother's head. A blinding burst of green light swept the room, so bright Matteo had to close his eyes for a moment as the green covered every inch of the living room.

When he opened them again, his grandmother had slumped to the floor, unmoving.

Matteo didn't understand.

"Merlin's balls, we better go now before any aurors come knocking. Couldn't you have just used some other spell, woman?"

"Fuck off." The woman spat. Matteo looked helplessly down at his grandmother as the two bickered. _Why wasn't she moving? Was she okay? Had that light somehow made her fall asleep? _As he stared at her body, he realised with a tremor that he had never seen _anyone _look quite so still before.

"We'd best leave. Now." The man said, hand moving slightly on Matteo's shoulder. At his words, Matteo realised that in all the time he stood there, he had not once tried to truly escape. Fear once more overcoming him, he cried out and attempted to break free from the man's grasp.

"No you don't, you little shit!" The man snarled, and he gripped at Matteo's pajama shirt seconds before Matteo was overwhelmed by the sensation of being stuffed into a tube much too small for his size.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. Darkness entombed him at all sides.

Before suddenly, it released. The boy fell to his knees with a sob, vomit bubbling up in his throat before spilling out on the pavement below. Dry heaving, the boy looked up. He was suddenly outside, but he didn't know where.

He was on a street. It was deserted, a few street lights illuminating the area. Bikes piled a rack nearby, and a man's distant shouting echoed from an apartment far above him. They were Italian words, but spoken with an accent that sounded odd. Different. A sharp _crack _reverberated in the air, and the woman from earlier appeared before him so suddenly Matteo couldn't understand how it was possible.

"Scream, and you'll end up just like your little Nonna." She spat, holding out the stick from earlier. Matteo flinched and coughed, snivelling as he anxiously wiped the vomit from his mouth with a sleeve.

"Disgusting." The woman sneered, before she pulled his shaking body up harshly. She dragged him along with her, his body unable to keep up with her fast pace. Together, the three walked to a nearby apartment block. Once inside, Matteo found the strength to walk with them up a few flights of stairs, a strong support on a railing the whole way.

"Please let me go." He pleaded in their preferred tongue as the woman dragged him upwards with a fist in the front of his shirt. "Please, don't h-hurt me. Please…"

"Shut up!" She hissed. "If you make any more noise I'll rip out your tongue."

Eventually, they stopped in front of an apartment door. Matteo hadn't had time to read the number on it before the pair had practically pushed him inside.

Inside the apartment, there was little furniture that Matteo could see. Other than a small table that held a strange stone pot-looking thing and a few stray chairs next to it, there was nothing. However as he looked down on the ground he noticed the wooden floor had a large black circle etched into it, surrounded by other strange, unfamiliar symbols.

"Step into that circle, boy." The woman barked as she marched over to the table. Matteo stood, frozen in fear as he took in the symbols. He had no idea what they meant. He just wanted his Nonna-

"Hurry up!" The man yelled, followed by a strange word Matteo didn't recognise before the boy felt his body seize up in shock, as if he had just zapped himself on a power outlet. Matteo wobbled over towards the circle, turning to face the two as they stared at him.

"P-Please…" he stuttered, fear making him unconsciously revert back to Italian, looking up at the woman. "C-Can you j-just take me back to my Nonna? S-She must b-be worried…"

"What's he saying, now?" The man asked her as he produced something small from his pocket.

"Nothing important,_ darling _." The woman said back, face curving up into a monstrous grin. Matteo thought she could have been pretty, if she wasn't so scary. The man filled the thing from his pocket, a little glass phial, with something thick and red in the pot.

"It needs to be taken willingly." The man reminded the woman as he handed the phial to her. The woman narrowed her eyes for a moment as she took Matteo in. Stalking across the room to him, she twisted her face to something that was a clear attempt at a genuine smile, but to the little boy it looked terrifying.

Matteo took a few steps back as she approached.

"Hey, _baby boy _." She cooed, moving a hand down to stroke his cheek. Ignoring the way Matteo let out a soft cry of terror, she continued. "I need you to drink this for me now."

"But my _N- _"

"_Si, Si. _Your Nonna." She sighed, holding the phial filled with the thick liquid closer to his face. "You can go back to her after this. After you do this little job for us. It's easy. Just _drink it _." She forced the phial into his hands as she took several steps backwards, back to where the man stood. Matteo inspected the glass, swooshing its contents around a little. It reminded him a lot of blood, from what he'd seen of it whenever he scraped his knees.

"Do you promise?" He asked, looking up at the woman. The expression she wore was almost feral, her wild eyes widening as her head cocked to the side.

"Yes, baby boy. I promise." She said.

Matteo thought about his grandmother, slumped on the floor the way she was when he had left. He wasn't sure _how _exactly he had left the house, he didn't remember leaving out the front door. But he thought about her sore back, and how uncomfortable she must be on the floor like that. He moved the phial a bit closer to his mouth. He just needed to drink this, and then he could go home. And help his Nonna rest in a more comfortable position. Yes, that's it. Just a simple job. The man and woman would leave him alone then. Right?

Opening his mouth, he choked down the fluid. It looked like blood, and tasted _exactly _like it. His stomach lurched, instinctively wanting to throw it up, but surprisingly the nausea didn't rise up again. He swallowed every last drop from the phial before dropping it at his side. It clanged to the floor briefly, before rolling to the corner of the room. Moments passed, and Matteo couldn't quite work out exactly why the couple had such expectant looks on their faces. They both wore equally hungry and curious looks as they watched him, like hawks watching their prey.

Then, a sharp stab of pain from his stomach made the boy double over, hands clutching his middle as he was forced to the floor from the unpleasant feeling. Then, the feeling spread from his stomach to his chest, and then his neck, his head, his arms, his legs. Even his fingers and toes began to ache as he cried out in agony and confusion. It felt _hot ._ Red hot. Like everything was burning. He opened his mouth to scream, but couldn't even hear himself as white noise took over his brain.

It _hurt hurt hurt hurt _for ages. The pain felt never-ending, like he had been hurting for so long, for an eternity.

Before it suddenly, mercifully stopped.

Almost instantly, a soothing chill cooled the ice in his veins. He opened wet eyes to properly register for the first time that he was on his back, looking up towards the ceiling as he took in heaving breath after heaving breath. Above him hovered three odd little words, blurry in his vision, the boy registering their existence properly only moments before his vision went black.

_Altair Arcturus Lestrange._

* * *

Italian words used in this chapter:

Cucciolo - puppy, a term of endearment one might call a young child

Britannico - British

Nonna - grandmother

Accidenti - damn it!/holy smoke!

Puttana - whore

Si - yes

I have used basic google translation/other websites to source any Italian words or phrases. If you are Italian/know Italian and notice any errors please send me a message so I can correct them!


	3. Chapter 3

It was just past noon when the old wizard apparated into Naples. Muggles bumped into him from all sides as he stepped out of the small alleyway in _Quartieri Spagnoli _, some carrying scowls on their faces as they took in the man's choice of clothing. Bilius Weasley gave his wardrobe a quick up-and-down. The several layers of muggle clothes (t-shirts? Or were they called p-shirts?) constricted his chest a little and made the place feel several degrees hotter. But his brother had sworn that they were a very fashionable item.

_The muggles must just be jealous of this outfit_, he thought smugly. He walked past apartment walls dotted with graffiti and over cement covered with tiny muggle cars and motorbikes. He observed the Italian locals around him as he walked down the narrow streets, many having double takes as they watched the wizard pass by them.

_The most everyone else just has is one p-shirt on! _He thought to himself, smile easing onto his ageing face as he looked at his layers upon layers of shirts donning his torso. _They must think I'm rich!_

Soon, he observed the neighbourhood with a critical eye. He couldn't understand why the wizard's of Naples preferred the old Spanish Quarter to the much better areas of the city. The muggles here seemed suspicious and schemey compared to that of the better neighbourhoods. But then again, their wizarding counterparts were similarly… different from the rest of the population. Where else was he going to be able to purchase Squasc ears for such a cheap price other than dear old DeFalco's in in _Quartiere Mezzanotte?_

Bilius soon stopped on a plain black door in the corner of a dead end, a dead end he knew would appear in no muggle map. The locals that had followed him with a keen eye quickly averted their gazes, immediately concerning themselves once more with their more ordinary day as he rapped his knuckles several times in an irregular pattern on the door.

A balding, heavy set wizard opened the door gruffly, barely acknowledging Bilius as he entered. The Weasley passed the threshold of the door to be engulfed by grey air, breathing in the scent of what could only be cheap wizarding cigars. He coughed a little as he quickly made his way through the crowded pub, catching sounds from conversations in an array of different languages, understanding little.

"No, no, no, sir. You don't understand what I'm after." A dark skinned witch said in English to an old, crippled man atop a rickety chair as Bilius made his way to the back entrance. "I wanted _Japanese _mermaid hearts, they're a completely different biological makeup to the British variety! If I wanted one from the isles, why would I be all the way out here?"

"You British _stronza_!" The old man hollered, voice loud and booming in the cramped pub. "Always have to be fucking difficult."

Bilius shivered slightly as he finally reached the back door. He felt relief overcome him as he stepped out into the cool, clean air of the Italian wizarding street of _Quartiere Mezzanotte _. He really did not enjoy the process of coming here very much. But the deals! He took in the street in front of him, shop merchandise spilling out onto the narrow path as it stretched out before his eyes. Items piled impossibly high in awkward, seemingly physically impossible ways. Books, cauldrons, boxes labelled with things the English wizard couldn't pronounce, and more. He supposed the place reminded him a bit of Knockturn Alley in London (too much for comfort, really), but the prices were much more competitive. So competitive the wizard couldn't resist picking up an international portkey every month or so to stock up on knick knacks. So competitive he could even ignore the occasional… suspicious characters. Or the all-over suspicious characters, really.

He made his way down the jumbled street, keeping a keen eye on the sales painted on the grimy store windows as he went. The sun crept further and further away from the city as he went, the wizarding street slowly enveloping itself in a soft grey light as the dusk set in.

It was nearing six o'clock as Bilius finally found himself in front of DeFalco's potions supply store. He gripped a black bag filled with prior purchases he felt quite giddy about as he approached the door.

Bilius had almost gripped the handle before a quiet _psst _from a side street broke the silence. He looked back and forth along the footpath of the main thoroughfare, which sported only a few small groups of shoppers at this time of day. None of which were paying him any attention. The wizard strode slowly over towards the side street beside his favourite store, cherry wand in his grip giving him enough confidence to swing his head around to discover the source of the noise.

What he saw was a boy.

No older than ten, it was a small boy with wild black hair sitting atop one of the wooden crates outside DeFalco's side door. The boy stood up upon meeting him, eyes darting to the street and the few Italian wizards that passed it behind Bilius.

"Mr Weasley!" The boy exclaimed, shuffling closer to the man. Bilius felt a smile creep up unbidden on his face as the boy came closer. He had made few friends since he started his monthly excursions to _Quartiere Mezzanotte_, and the local boy was one of those few.

"Little Giacomo!" He greeting the boy, dropping his shopping bag to one side as he gave the boy a welcoming pat on the shoulder. "Good to see you again! Tell me, are you always lurking about right next to our dear DeFalco's? Should I let the man know he has a little wizard taking up free real estate right on his alley?"

Giacomo's eyes bugged out his head, a reaction much stronger than Bilius was expecting.

"N-No!" The boy gasped. "It's just that… the entrance close to my house is just there." He pointed down the alley behind him to a brick wall several feet away, appearing to all the world a solid mass. Bilius knew it was more than it seemed however, the Leaky Cauldron's entrance to Diagon Alley coming to the forefront of his mind.

"Oh." Bilius said, eyebrows rising. "Well, you don't tend get very far in here, do you, chap?"

"Mother told me I should never speak to strangers, Mr Weasley." Giacomo replied. "Especially wizards."

"Well, if you grow up so close to this place, I can understand why." Bilius eyed a few strange characters as they crossed his narrow field of vision on the main street. It suddenly occurred to him that he had never seen Giacomo actually _in_ _Quartiere Mezzanotte_. He often ran into the young wizard in the muggle streets, or in wizard's alleyways. Never actually around other wizards. He observed the boy appraisingly. Must be quite a smart young chap, to never meddle with the wizards of Naples. _Not to mention the boy's heritage. Must be dangerous for a young British boy to grow up in Italy._

"About what I asked you last time, Mr Weasley…" the boy trailed off, nervously rubbing the back of his neck. Bilius' eyebrows furrowed for a moment, cogs in his head turning, before he let out a long-suffering sigh.

"Please, sir." Giacomo pleaded. "My mother really can't do those sorts of things herself. She's been ill since she got dragon pox last summer. That's why she never comes out of our house."

"I don't know…" The wizard replied slowly. "Are you sure you're alright, kid? I'm not sure how I feel about this..."

"But you're British as well, you know how it is!" Giacomo sighed, a pout forming on his face. "My mother really said it was okay! You can meet her right now, if you want! The pox has her on the bed most days though, but you get used to the smell of the puss-"

Bilius pictured a disfigured, sallow-faced woman in his mind's eye at the boy's words, pox wounds seeping out a thick yellow-

"Oh no, no!" He gasped, hand unconsciously rising to cover the lower half of his face. "That… that wouldn't be necessary, my boy. But… ah…" He sighed, shrugging his shoulders.

He watched the boy's hopeful face, knowing how the kid had conned him into admitting he would 'think about it' last time, and how doomed he was as he watched that hopeful expression. _Merlin, having so many little nephews has turned me soft._

"Would this change your mind?" Giacomo reached into his robe pocket and brought forth a small handful of golden coins.

"Dear Merlin! Wherever did you get half a dozen _galleons _from, boy?" The wizard gasped, clutching his heart dramatically as Giacomo let the golden metal fall into his receiving hand.

"My, uh, mother's old job…"

"Ah, that's right! You did say she used to work for _Potions for the Most Mortifying Magical Maladies _? I've heard they have the most _excellent _severance packages for upper management-"

"Yep. Yep, that's what it was." Giacomo cut in quickly, slightly wide-eyed. "So tell me Mr Weasley, do you think you can go, ehem, _talk _to the administrator tomorrow, or the day after?"

"Oh please dear Giacomo, I've told you many times. Call me Bilius, boy!" The man replied, now staring down at the glittering gold in wonder. It was more money than he'd ever held at one time in many long years. He glanced down at his purchases on the floor, knowing they would only add up to a few megere sickles if he were to resell them in Knockturn Alley. He could afford even specially imported Ugandan firewhisky with the number of galleons he held in his palm!

"Though I do say, my young chap, this sort of thing isn't exactly _legal _." He hesitated, looking up at Giacomo again. "Surely you cannot simply speak to someone at the Muggle Communications department in the Italian ministry? They could quite easily get you into a muggle primary school if that is truly what she wants."

Giacomo's face scrunched up suddenly, the picture of youthful despair. "But the ministry is just so _mean _to us, Bilius." The boy fumbled with his hands for a moment, eyes darting shyly around. "And my mother is just _so _ill, as well. And she really wants me to go to this school in particular. Unless you didn't want these coins?" The boy reached forward to the cluster of galleons in the Weasley's hand.

"_NO! _" The man growled. His lips peeled to reveal a sudden snare, posture stiffening and other hand going to cover the money like one would a treasured jewel.

"I can do it," he assured. "Just give me a day. Did your mother write the address down?"

"Of course, sir." The scrawny boy reassured, procuring a piece of white parchment from his robe, along with a few pages of muggle paper. "Just a basic confundus charm will do. I just need her to think I go to the school and put me in the school, uh, system.. thing."

"Yes, yes, whatever." Bilius Weasley took the parchment and the sheets of paper, quizzical look growing as he took in the information on the latter. "You're a… resourceful little fella, aren't ya, kid? How old did you say you were again?"

"I'm nine." Giacomo replied, sniffing at the growing cold as the sun continued its descent. "But that's all just, uhm, stuff my _mum _has made to give to you. Because I'm only nine. Obviously."

"Right…" The redheaded man trailed off, lips pursing in thought. "Whelp, I'm off then. Pray the Italian aurors doesn't catch me doing this. Dear Merlin do they hate British Wizards! It's funny actually, my brother Arthur said that the _muggle _ministries' relationship is very different! Why I'd never-"

And with that, the British wizard trailed off in a long-winded tangent about muggle governments, embellishing parts where he was seemingly unaware muggles did not have access to floo powder. The young boy once more sat upon an old wooden crate in the alleyway and simply listened, smiling all the while.

Autumn had arrived quite unexpectedly. A cool chill swept across the country, and school children shivered on their way to and from the school at the end of the lane. The school was smaller than most in its city. It boasted clean, manicured gardens that hinted at the private institution's prestige as one entered the grounds. Visible from a closed window on the third floor, a small class of children sat expectantly as their teacher handed paper back to each student.

"Nineteen out of twenty, Giacomo. Very well done. I daresay we have an English master in this class." Mrs Boni chuckled to herself as she handed the sheet of test paper to her shy pupil. "If only you were this capable with your other subjects, but I guess one can't have everything."

"Thanks, Mrs Boni." Giacomo replied sheepishly. The old teacher looked back at the next test paper, mouth just starting to form the first syllable of the next student before the wild haired boy interrupted her.

"Say, Mrs Boni." He hesitated. "If my parents don't have time the _whole of next week _-"

"Oh no, Giacomo. All parents must have their interviews. We can't change the rules just for you. Even if your parents are _so busy _."

"Oh no." The boy said almost to himself, paling. The woman frowned at the student for a moment.

"It's not to worry, dear." She said. "You're doing plenty good enough. I'm sure your parents will be very proud of how you're doing." She turned on her heel, eyes back on the test paper once more.

"Claudia, eight out of twenty." A small gasp from a brunette girl with pigtails sounded behind the despiring boy. "With the amount you stare at poor Giacomo, one would think you would have picked something off of him by now!"

The class of ten year olds erupted into giggles as the girl bunched her hands in her hair, face red with embarrassment.

"Giacomo!" A voice whispered earnestly beside him. "Claudia _totally _likes you! Do you like her back?"

"Uh..." Giacomo stuttered, hand going to his wild black mop of hair in a fruitless attempt to tame it down anxiously. "I don't know. I haven't really ah, noticed her." His friend sighed, leaning back on his chair as he threw a teasing expression on his clueless classmate.

"Surely you noticed her the other day?" Ezio Lombardo's eyebrows wiggled as he nudged the other boy. "She practically threw herself into your arms! _And you jumped away like a little mouse! _Pretty cold, _amico. _She still has that bruise from where she fell."

Giacomo groaned. Ezio eventually, mercifully, ceased torturing his best friend as Giacomo grew closer and closer to becoming one with the floor below his chair. Such a thing was only prevented by a harsh word about proper posture from Mrs Boni, with Giacomo bolting straight upright once more.

"Anyways, are you sure you can't come hang out with us at the park today?" The teasing boy asked, doodling in one hand onto a textbook and tapping his fingers with the other.

"Sorry, Ezio." Giacomo signed, looking over his quiz and frowning. "You know my parents, gotta be home right after school."

"Whatever." The other boy whined sourly. "You never do anything fun with us, ever. What's up with your parents, anyway?"

"They're just lame, that's all. Can't be helped." Was Giacomo's only reply as he zoned in on the one wrong answer on his sheet of paper. "Hmmph. I only spelled one word wrong. How lame is spelling, anyway?"

"I can't even spell in _Italian. _" Ezio pouted, the dark skinned boy's brow furrowing at his mark of ten. "Why do you care so much, anyway? You already do so well. Surely your parents aren't that mean?"

"No, it's not that." Giacomo answered, lifting his head to look at the bright sky in the window. "Well, I guess maybe it kind of is. I just don't know how long I have here, after all."

"What do you mean? Are you dying? If you are, can I have your pencil case? My little sister won't stop _chewing _on mine at home."

Giacomo giggled at his friend's words and looked towards him to see Ezio's lip pursed and arms crossed.

"Okay." He agreed. "If I die, you can have my pencil case." A brief silence fell over the two as their teacher continued handing out the last of the test papers. Giacomo felt beyond happy when he had made his first friend at the school. Ezio knew nothing of wizards or the magical world, yet Giacomo had still seen him levitate an apple one day in the schoolyard, like there was nothing unusual about it. Giacomo wondered if Ezio would grow up to become a strong wizard too, like he knew his parents to be. He pictured taking Ezio over to his house and having his parents return home, and how they would tell his best friend all about spells and potions and magical creatures.

But then he thought about how his parents would talk about boys like Ezio, and how they were lesser. And he knew he had to keep his friend as far away as possible.

"There's something weird with you." Ezio said, slowly picking up his pencil again. Giacomo shifted uncomfortably on his chair. The boy's brows furrowed as his friend continued.

"You never talk about your parents, or where you went to school before you came here. Or anything like that at all." The boy frowned as he scratched out his most recent doodle in his book, harsh lines destroying a cartoonish depiction of a dog wearing medieval battle armour.

"And you always talk like you're not gonna be here soon. Like I'm gonna go to school one day, and you'll just be gone."

"Hush, Ezio." Mrs Boni cut through. Both boys looked up to see that she had returned to the front of the class, hand clutched around a stick of chalk. "It's time for your English lesson, children. Now, today we're going to have a look at these new words-"

"I'm sorry, Ezio." Giacomo whispered as he glanced back at his friend, who had settled his eyes firmly back on his textbook.

"It's just… difficult to say." Giacomo struggled to speak. "I can't tell you why, but… I might have to move, some time. Maybe some time soon, or some time in a long time. That sort of thing. I don't know when."

"But why?" Ezio whispered back. "You're my first _best _best friend. Why can't you tell me why your parents-"

"I can't. I'm sorry."

Ezio huffed at his friend's only response, slouching onto the desk and placing a hand on the side of his head, effectively blocking his friend from view.

Those words were the final ones spoken between the friends that day, the final school hour quickly passing them by before it was time for him to head home again. He gave one last hopeful look to his friend as he left, but Ezio was steadily avoiding his gaze as he put on his school bag before trudging out of the classroom. The black haired boy sighed, hoping that his friend would be out of his poor mood by the next day.

Clean, upper middle class houses soon gave way to more battered, desolate apartment complexes as the boy walked through the city of Naples. It was still a long walk after he exited the bus, the dusk beginning to settle in as he inched closer and closer to the street he called home. Eventually, Giacomo come to a stop outside a bakery. The shop jutted out of an old building that towered a few storeys high, a few clotheslines peppering the sky above it.

He entered, hand reaching into his pocket to take out a few lira notes as he strolled up to the front desk of the tiny establishment.

"Hey there, _piccolo! _Same as usual?"

"Yes please _signore_." Giacomo meekly replied, as the store owner placed one simple loaf of bread on the counter. He exchanged the money with the man before grabbing the loaf by the knot of the bag, holding it by his side.

"Been doing all of Signora Durante's chores again, _piccolo?_" The man asked kindly as he looked at Giacomo's lira bills, old laugh lines pulling up to create a warm smile for the boy.

"I guess." Giacomo shrugged. "Sorry _signore _, I have to go now. My mother and father are waiting for me at home."

"_Si, si _." The man nodded. "But here, child. Something for the road, on the house." Before Giacomo could say anything in response, the baker had pushed a large frosted bun covered in plastic wrap into his other hand.

"Really? Thank you, _signore _!" Giacomo left the bakery with a bounce in his step, troubles temporarily forgotten as he looked forward to the sweet treat. He would save it for later, he thought to himself. Maybe he'll share some of it with Ezio the next day. The boy loved food bribes.

A few minutes later Giacomo had finally reached his house. He walked through the unlatched door and into the dark apartment, knowing his parents' enchantments meant he would not have to worry about any potential intruders.

He had sat his backpack, bread, and frosted bun onto the dining room table before he realised anything was wrong.

He looked up. A light had been flickered on in the room, blinking above him and swaying slightly from left to right.

"What's this we have here, little Altair?" A woman's voice came from behind him. The boy's eyes widened in surprise as he flipped around.

"You're back." He said, eyes travelling down nervously as his mother stood in the kitchen. He hadn't even heard her enter the room. She stalked up to him slowly, stopping a few feet in front of him and tilting her head to squint at the clothes on his body.

"Yes, your father and I are back. But," she suddenly shot a hand out, much like a snake would attack its prey. Unforgiving fingers clutched around the boy's school tie. She pulled upwards on the knot, and the boy felt his throat tighten at the pressure. Fearfully, he looked up at her dark eyes for the first time in a long time.

"We leave you alone for just a _widdle bit _," the woman pouted, shaking the tie from side to side. The boy struggled to keep to his feet. "And when we come back, not only are you nowhere near the house, but you're wearing _muggle school clothes _. Little boy, what will we do with you?"

She released her grip on his tie, but not before tugging it downwards in a manner which forced the boy to struggle not to topple forward. The woman stalked around him, seizing him up.

"You were gone for almost a year, mother." The boy said, gasping for air. He let himself be a little proud of his words. The last time he had spoken to her, he had stuttered in every sentence. But not anymore.

The woman didn't react to his words. He grew nervous and despite himself, let more words come tumbling from his lips.

"I was bored. And I couldn't speak to any Italian wizards, so I just got muggles to teach me things while you were gone." He met her gaze as she finished staring him up and down.

"You better tell me you didn't speak to _one _Italian wizard." She whispered furiously, hand reaching forward and fisting into his messy hair to bring his face closer to hers. Himself, his mother, and his father were all alike in that sense. Hair so dark and wild that one could almost consider them kin to feral beasts or wild men. He had wondered if people back in Britain ever did, back when his parents used to live there before he was born.

"I didn't speak to any." He promised. "Not one Italian wizard."

The woman's gaze pierced his eyes for a moment, almost searching. Eventually, she seemed satisfied, releasing him once more.

"That's good, Altair." She said, before looking down at the bread and the frosted bun on the table. She grabbed the bun with both hands, breaking into the plastic with long nails and taking a large bite of the sweet, sugary treat. When she spoke again, it was with a full mouth and slightly muffled.

"Very resourceful of you. Doing that."

"Really?" The boy asked, dumbfounded. He hadn't quite known what to expect if one or both of his parents finally returned, but he hadn't expected… _acceptance._

"You will still have to be punished." Bellatrix Lestrange said, mouth full of the bun. "You are a clever boy, but you cannot think you can associate with disgusting _muggles _unpunished. Risking your father and I's safety!" There was a small silence as the woman swallowed.

"This thing you stole is disgusting." She sneered, looking down at the food in her hands. She dropped the bun onto the ground and unsheathed her wand, muttering a quick vanishing spell. Just like that, the bun disappeared into thin air before the boy's eyes.

"Your father will be back any minute, now. We will be moving again, and once there we will discuss your punishment." Bellatrix Lestrange left the room alone to her son, who simply stared at the space where the precious treat had been seconds before.

The thought crossed his mind of two young boys. One had long shaggy hair that went a few inches past his ears, and the other liked to draw funny pictures of dogs in armour. The pair shared a sweet bread before their class started that morning, without a care in the world. No parents, no fears of nasty spells that made him hurt. Only happy grins and floating pencil cases.

Altair shook his head, and watched as the front door opened, a tall man stomping through. Rodolphus Lestrange walked right past the kitchen and into the house's makeshift study, not even serving Altair a glance as he went by. Altair felt his life go back to the way it used to be in an instant, and he knew he couldn't think about dogs in armour anymore, or another boy's cheeky smiles.

* * *

Italian words used in this chapter:

Quartieri Spagnoli - Spanish Quarter. An area in Naples said to be of lower socioeconomic, but it seems nowadays has become a bit fancier (I couldn't be sure though, I've never had the privilege of going).

Quartiere Mezzanotte - Midnight Quarter

Stronza - asshole

Amico - friend

Piccolo - little one

I have used basic google translation/other websites to source any Italian words or phrases. If you are Italian/know Italian and notice any errors please send me a message so I can correct them!


	4. Chapter 4

The trees outside the cottage swung softly in the breeze as the sun's rays seeped down on the countryside. The boy inside however, could feel none of it on his cheeks.

Altair Lestrange sat alone on a couch facing a pair of large windows, looking at the sprawling plains of the Tuscan countryside on the other side of the glass. He ate the last mouthfuls of a bland cereal with a blank expression on his face, slouching into the plush cushions surrounding him. He wondered absently about how he was going to fill the hours of the day. The rise of a bright and welcoming sun in the distance seemed to mock him, a reminder of the privilege that had since been stripped away.

He had already crossed out the day in the muggle calendar on the fridge, adding to the weeks of other little _x _'s littering the month of June, 1991. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised on his parent's decision. They had very quickly decided that locking him inside of their new hideaway was a great idea the moment they left Naples. He still wished they had at least spelled the house to let him into the garden.

_Or Merlin, couldn't the wards have been placed just far out enough so that I could open a window?_

Altair knew, however, that this punishment was a lucky one. He had expected a lot worse from his mother and father. While he only bore a scar on his forehead, he could have had many more had his father not been so adept at producing healing balms after his mother's vicious punishments. His father's mercy had always been at odds with his cruelness. The man always switching from one mood to the next as if changing his entire personality, one moment as cruel and strange as Bellatrix, and the other offering healing magic to offset injury and even leaving Altair a stack of books to read before leaving him in the cottage. The book pile had been long since scoured through, Altair quickly growing bored of the English magical books and novels on the living room coffee table. The only one that had really captured his attention enough for him to really care for was a Hogwarts first year textbook. But the book had only made him more desperate to have_ something _real to do, what with its preference for practical exercises over magical theory.

He had placed the cereal bowl back in the kitchen sink when he heard a distant _creak _come from the other side of the house. Back straightening, he whipped his head around, heart skipping a beat.

_Mother and Father would have yelled something at me by now if they were back_, he thought to himself nervously. The boy slowly made his way back across the living room, stopping in front of what made him take in a sharp, shocked breath. He stood rooted to the floor as he stared at the only door to the house that he was forbidden from entering, standing a few centimeters ajar.

In all the years he could remember, Bellatrix and Rodolphus had always filled one room with their most precious and forbidden items in every house they had hidden in. He remembered in the old days they had only locked it with a simple locking charm. Back then they would stay for long stretches of time to watch over him before they had deemed him old enough to survive alone for long periods. But in the moments they left him to embark on some quest, they always made sure to place several locking spells, curses, and alarm systems on the door. _Always._

Altair stood in the doorway, a mountain of opportunity suddenly before him. With a cautious hand, he pushed the door inwards, revealing a simple bedroom. A few magically expandable suitcases littered the floor, doubtlessly having their own dark curses as defense measures.

The boy took the room in with his eyes quickly, noticing a chest of drawers and two small side tables, one of them slightly pulled open. He felt his vision tunnel around the drawer as he was suddenly felt with a _need _to be closer to it, feet quickly crossing the length of the room as if he was being pulled from a string. He reached down and pulled the drawer open, not quite knowing what he now so desperately needed to see. The drawer had only one item inside, which rolled closer to the drawer's handle with the momentum Altair had used to pull it open.

It was a long, white wand with a thin handle at its base. It would take Altair a few years to wonder just _why _the wand had been placed there, in such an obvious place in a suddenly unlocked room. But for now, he did not question his circumstances at all, being too overwhelmed by his own sudden joy that he had found a _wand _to break his boredom!

He gripped the wood tightly in one hand, feeling a sudden rush of elation and warmth as it suddenly shot out a burst of red and gold sparks. He left the bedroom in a rush as he remembered the most precious items in the living room that had starved off his boredom for the first week of his punishment.

Entering the room one more, he looked over at the small pile atop the dusty coffee table. He had long since given them all a thorough read, but he never thought he'd get the opportunity to take on the practical aspects of one of them. He picked up the book on the top of the stack with eager hands.

Chapter seven of _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 _by Miranda Goshawk flipped open, bookmarked with a scrap piece of parchment.

_"The Levitation Charm is one of the first spells learnt by any young witch or wizard. With the charm a witch or wizard can make things fly with the flick of a wand. The charm is an excellent test of your magical skills, wand control and above all, patience."_

The levitation charm. Altair knew he needed to learn the basics one day, at the very least. He wondered whether he would ever be able to go to a wizard's school, like Hogwarts or Luponero, the Italian wizard's school. He remembered his mother laughing in his face when he tried to broach the subject once. He had despaired at the thought of never being able to study magic. His parents seemed content to keep him ignorant of it, going off on adventures all their own to places he was never allowed to know. He could only be more grateful that they had never known of his discovery of the entrance to _Quartiere Mezzanotte _. He knew the wizards there operated outside of the ministry, but the Lestranges still didn't trust any of them, either. He shivered to think of how they would have punished him had they known he'd made a friend in Bilius Weasley, however brief that friendship was.

If he needed to learn magic, he would have to make the first steps himself. He nodded, psyching himself up as he reread the passages describing the spell's method.

"_Wingardium leviosa. _" He said, pointing his wand expectantly at a small pencil placed on the end of the table. It didn't move an inch.

_Not to worry, the book did talk about patience _, the young wizard thought.

Patience was a virtue one would think was instilled in the boy given the factors in which he grew up. However, distant parents that left for long periods of time and a month-long imprisonment did seemingly nothing to help him after his twentieth unsuccessful attempt.

"_Porco cane_," he cursed under his breath. "How does anybody do this?"

Finally, on the twenty-fifth attempt, the pencil twitched slightly as he waved his wand. A smile split his face from ear to ear at the progress. He only wished he could have had his parents teach him so he could learn faster. Or anyone, for that matter.

As the hours passed by, the boy eventually got the pencil to be able to float an inch off the table. He considered that decent progress, and stuffed the wand into the pocket of his pants as midday loomed. With a grumbling stomach Altair marched into the kitchen to make himself a simple lunch, feeling more accomplished than he had the entire time he had been living in the cottage.

_It's so exciting, _he thought gleefully. _I have a wand! I can learn all the magic I want until Mother and Father get back! As long as I put the wand back, they'll never know anything happened!_

What with the amount of time it had been since he had taken the wand from its place, the boy was sure that his parents were none the wiser. And what was wrong with a little magic? It was all stuff he _should _be learning, anyway, given what the textbook said!

He was about to take a bite into his sandwich the moment he heard a door slam open. Blood running cold, he leapt to his feet, inching towards the entrance to the kitchen to where he could see the front door.

Confirming his fear, door was wide open, sunlight spilling in from outside.

He could have slapped himself. Shifting his right hand down to his trouser pockets he felt the imprint of the white wooden wand against his thigh._Merlin, why hadn't he just put it back when he stopped using it. _Anxiously, he watched as his mother entered the house and immediately locked eyes with him, praying his face wouldn't betray his sudden panic.

Bellatrix Lestrange still easily managed to look foreboding in the entryway, despite the picturesque rural scene over her back behind the front door. She looked the same as ever, wearing one of her favourite black dresses that Altair always thought _must _be really uncomfortable. Whatever she had done that day, she hadn't needed to blend into either muggle or wizarding society to do it.

"Hello, baby boy." She smiled, smooth, pale face curving upwards unnaturally as she took in the sight of him. "How has our lovely son been lately?" Altair hated when she decided to be vicious and cruel, but days where she plastered a fake grin on her face and engaged in baby talk was when he felt the most nervous. While Rodolphus entertained occasional moments of genuine concern for him, Bellatrix seemed more akin to a cat playing with its food during these times. Her dark eyes took him in as he stood rooted to the spot a few meters in front of her.

Rodolphus entered from behind his wife, black hair and beard slightly longer than Altair remembered. He muttered something to her, a welcome distraction which Altair used to quietly move to the living room, glancing at the closed door of their bedroom helplessly as his mind raced to figure out exactly how he would get out of his predicament. Before, when he had only the thoughts in his brain to entertain, he had concocted a plan to try and flatter his parents just enough that they might edit the wards to allow him to come and go from the house. He had never seen such a beautiful landscape, and had been saddened that the only time he had lived outside an urban cityscape had been the one time he wasn't allowed to go outside at all.

"We will have to leave soon, best it be tonight, Bella." He heard his father's deep voice mutter as the pair entered the living room, ignoring Altair for the moment. Altair felt instant relief at the man's words, guessing that his parents had only come to quickly stock up on something in one of their mysterious suitcases in their room. He sank back into the couch, watching them mindfully as they continued their conversation.

"You're really so worried about a few aurors, husband?" His mother spat back, annoyance obvious in her tone. "They have _nothing. _Never come_close _to discovering us."

"I think you underestimate them." Rodolphus replied. "I've heard whispers. They found our old hideout in Naples only days after we left."

"They're lying!" Bellatrix hissed. "They're just trying to make themselves look like they're onto us. That ministry is helpless. Incompetent. _Impure-"_

"Nevertheless, Bella." His father said. "It is better to be safe than sorry. We leave with the boy tonight. Gather our things."

Altair felt as if his heart had descended somewhere into his stomach. Staring wide eyed at the floor, he said nothing as his mother huffed and made her way to the forbidden door. He heard her pause as she approached it, muttering under her breath in confusion, before the sound of a doorknob turning filled Altair's ears.

By some miracle, she did not immediately turn and curse Altair the moment the door opened without any unlocking spells. The boy heard her shuffle forward and the door slam shut behind her.

"Altair." His father's voice captured his attention immediately, his gaze rising up hesitantly from the floor as Rodolphus stood in front of him.

"Yes, Father?" He said, keenly aware of the pointy end of the white wand cutting into his thigh.

"I trust your time alone here has been… enlightening?" The man asked, eyebrow raising at the last word as a small smirk emerged on his mouth.

"Yes, Father." Altair answered, back straightening to create a posture fit for a pureblood heir, if not out of pride than out of survival instinct.

Rodolphus let out a few amused chuckles at Altair's response.

"I haven't spoken to many children in my years," Rodolphus said. "But I know there's few your age that could stand being left alone in such a small house for so long, with nothing but a few books."

_I couldn't stand it, not at all! _Altair thought furiously to himself, but kept his face carefully blank as his father continued.

"Quite a resourceful boy, aren't you?" Rodolphus said, taking a step closer towards Altair to watch his face attentively. "We wondered to ourselves how you would fare the first time we had to leave you alone for a long time. It had to be done, of course. As much value you are to us, we have another that matters much more. And _he _will always come first."

Rodolphus clasped his hands together, and cracked his knuckles, each _crack _filling up the silence between these words and the next.

"Bella and I were so surprised when we came back to find that you had endeared yourself to the entire neighbourhood, managing to keep yourself fed and clean at only eight years old by manipulating muggles into taking care of you. Even more incredible, none that gave you scraps of food had figured out that you were a helpless child with no parents to watch over you. And just like that, you had shown you had survival instincts good enough to be trusted to be on your own."

Altair wasn't sure where his father was going with his monologue, feeling himself grow more and more anxious as his mother spent more time in the forbidden room. More time to discover what was missing.

"We leave you alone for long enough, and by the time we come back you've gotten yourself into a school of rich muggles, talking to them, befriending them. Bellatrix wanted to unleash the Cruciatus Curse on you and lock you in a cupboard for a month with nothing but stale bread and water to keep you going. After all, we can't have you risk our discovery by appearing in any records."

"But I understood." The man said, taking another step closer to Altair. "We had never properly taught you our ways, taught you the natural order of things. Taught you that _muggles _had a natural place below wizards. You only sought knowledge. I was happy that, of all the children, you were the one with my family's name."

Rodolphus took another step, and suddenly he was close enough to bend down and place an unforgivably harsh grip on one of Altair's shoulders. The boy winced, but knew that his father would disapprove greatly if he broke eye contact.

"I'm glad that, out of all others, it was one as cunning as _you _. One day, when we may have to-" The man broke off his words suddenly, seeming to lose a bit of composure as he fumbled for words.

"-well, never mind that." He continued. "You were the child it was meant to be, anyway. I'm glad Bellatrix managed to have you."

Altair thought about his mother, an image flashing in his mind of her with a stomach plump with child. She had never discussed carrying him, and the idea seemed quite alien to him given how he had always perceived her. She didn't have a maternal bone in her body.

"Father." Altair started, hesitance in his voice as he spoke.

"Yes?" Rodolphus said, taking a step back from Altair as he waiting to hear what he had to say.

"That...that Italian _Nonna _I had-" Altair began nervously before being cut off.

"She was never your grandmother, boy." Rodolphus said, annoyance coming out of his words as he rolled his eyes at Altair's use of the word.

"I know." Altair said. "I know what you told me. That she was just some woman you confunded to take care of me until the ministry got too close to finding out about m-me."

"Why are you asking about her now, then?" His father scoffed. "Are you going to moan on and on about how much you wish we hadn't killed her? She needed to go, it was for our own safety. Regrettable to you, I'm sure. But that's _life _, boy."

"There were other ways." Altair replied, feeling an old, forgotten anger and grief rise up inside him. "That charm that makes people forget things. And other things too."

"I'll have no more of your whining." Rodolphus declared. "Just because I say one good thing about you, you think you have my favour enough to talk down to me like this? The _insolence _!"

It was not a second after he had shouted the last word that the door to the forbidden room opened with a blast.

"_ It's gone! _" Bellatrix shouted furiously. "Boy! What did you do with it?" She practically flew over to Altair to grip his hair with a tight, merciless grasp as she lifted him up from the couch.

"How did you get inside?" She spat, shaking him with one hand in a show of surprising strength as he gasped and gripped the hair atop his head.

"I-It was just unlocked! I didn't do anything!" He cried back, knowing immediately that there would be no point in trying to cover up his misdeed. It only ever made it worse when it came to his parents. Oh, why did he have to mention his _Nonna? _He could've just kept his mouth shut and maybe his father would be more-

"What is it? What has he taken?" His father's booming voice called, giving Altair a once-over before stopping as he noticed the now obvious wand imprint in his pants pocket. Reaching over, he shoved his hand into the pocket and whipped the white wand out clutching it wide eyed as Bellatrix released Altair from her grip.

_"HOW DID HE GET IT? _" Bellatrix screamed as she saw the wand, immediately snatching it from Rodolphus' hands.

"I placed the locks on the door. I know I did." Rodolphus said as his dark eyes met Altair's once more, the boy feeling fear grow in his chest until he felt he could hardly breathe. The wand was clearly important to his parents. He had never seen such a hard look on his father's face before.

"To the cellar, boy. _Now _." Rodolphus ordered, voice going up in volume after Altair couldn't bring himself to move for a few seconds. "We will deal with you later. After we have everything ready. You'll be lucky if you get the chance to even see the sun for the next year after this."

Knowing any words he could muster up would anger his father even more, Altair fled the living room. Heading straight into the cottage kitchen, he pushed up the loose floorboard he knew was hiding the leaver to the tiny cellar.

Going down the small staircase and into the dark, small space, he supposed most children would consider the tiny confines themselves to be a serious punishment. The ceiling was low and the walls only a few meters apart, the dull light bulb illuminating only floor to ceiling grey brick as he pulled its cord. This wasn't the first house of theirs to feature some tiny, hidden room. In fact he suspected his parents were simply creating a new one whenever they went to a new place. He had spent a few nights locked up in one if one of his parents were especially cross with him, but luckily they were never as cruel as to keep him confined for days on end. He prayed his father's words didn't hint at that.

Knowing that they would likely have to leave the house by that night, Altair settled himself down against a cool brick wall. He was very glad he didn't have any claustrophobia. He remembered how much Claudia in his school class freaked out after spotting a tiny spider in in the playground. Altair wondered what his mother would do if he ever developed a phobia. Knowing her, she would probably expose it to him relentlessly, lecturing him about weaknesses along the way.

The time passed in a haze around him as he thought about the lush countryside outside the cottage, and what the new house would look like. Would his parents choose a similar place, or another city? They had always said cities were easier to hide in, any of his accidental magic much easier to hide in a dense cityscape than it would be in a small village or in the middle of nowhere. Wizarding ministries kept a watchful eye on everything, they had said.

From the small cellar he could hear no noise unless someone else entered the kitchen, and the passage of time grew wonky at the lack of outside light. Altair was in the middle of picturing an old man's face in the brick walls as a series of loud bangs sounded in the distance. His eyes widened, wondering what it could be. He inched forwards, closer to the stairs as the banging continued. It was coming from a source further away from the kitchen, he surmised. Unintelligible yelling following the booming noises that could only be from a duel continued for what felt like hours before a sudden silence. Not long after, a rush of footsteps pounded on the space above his head.

_"Search the whole place!" _An unfamiliar voice yelled in Italian from above. _"Make sure they leave no secrets!"_

A few pairs of boots pounded on the floorboards above, and Altair wondered how many of them they were.

_Aurors. Have they got mother and father? What was going to happen to him, now?!_

Altair felt a fear, much more all-encompassing and breathtaking than any he'd felt about his parents. _Wizards are here. Real wizards like at Quartiere Mezzanotte. But ones that worked for the ministry instead of hiding from it, like us._

Altair stood in the cellar, breath quick and head hazy, the highest hairs on his head just beginning to brush the low ceiling as he listened to the sounds above him.

_"Merda! _I cannot believe what a fight those two made. Just some troublesome British wizards he said, that _figlio di puttana!"_

"At least they won't be harming muggles any longer. Come on, let's go."

The boy's mind raced a mile a minute to catch up to what he heard from above. _Mother and Father, could they be…_

He looked around quickly, taking in the tiny cellar, and very suddenly the boy realised the high possibility that nobody else may enter the room above him for quite some time. His mind was made up within seconds.

"_No, per favore! _" He yelled, quickly climbing up the stairs and using one hand to bang on the cellar hatch. "Please, I'm down here! I'm locked down here, please, get me out!"

"What the fuck is that?" One of the men from earlier yelled. Some shuffling noises made their way down to Altair before a whispered spell made them go silent for a moment.

"Underneath the floor, here." The second voice said. "Something's under there."

"Good lord, what do you think this is about?" The first man muttered, barely audible to Altair. The boy heard a noise akin to wood hitting against wood before a bright light surrounded his vision. Blinking a few times, his eyes soon adjusted to see two men kneeling above him at the entrance to the cellar, wands pointed to his face. One of them, a young man with blond, curly locks, froze as he took Altair in.

"It's a kid!" He yelled, standing up and moving his wand down to his side. _"Dio mio, _it's only a kid, Gian. Get your wand out of his face." The other man, Gian, moved his wand down as well.

"Hey there, kid." Gian said, face edging on a cautionary smile "Why don't you come out of there, huh? It doesn't seem very nice to be all cooped up in that place." The man even held out a hand to Altair, looking all the part of a kind and sincere man.

Slowly, Altair moved his feet up the top steps of the cellar stairs, avoiding Gian's hand on the way. He took the final shaky step up onto the kitchen floor, utterly unsure of how to react to the strangers in his kitchen. Should he run? Scream? Punch them in the face, and then run? He gave an anxious glance at the men's wands.

"It's okay, son." Gian said as he stood upright, placing a gentle hand on Altair's shoulder. "You're safe now. You'll be alright."

Altair felt pale and a little woozy as the man guided him away from the kitchen. The scene of the living room looked akin to a war zone. Furniture strewn in splinters from one size of the house to the other, with scraps of wallpaper all over the floor in haphazard chunks. Black scorch marks covered the inside of the cottage, and Altair could even see straight through the holes in the walls where spells had made contact. Outside, the sun had long since set to reveal a starry night sky. There were several other men and women walking about inspecting different parts of the room, all clad in the same navy blue robes as the other two men. _Italian Auror robes _.

"Where are my mother and father?" Altair stuttered, panicked. His words caused the group of wizards and witches to freeze in their actions. They all stared down at him, and Altair suddenly felt very small in the face of so many magic users. Apart from his parents and Bilius Weasley, he had never actually spoken to any other members of the wizarding world.

"Don't worry, kiddo. Your parents are, uh, not seriously hurt. But you'll need to come with us now." The second man from earlier said, entering behind him to join the group of aurors.

"There was no son listed on the Lestranges case files!" A woman whispered furiously to him, glancing back and forth between Altair and the man anxiously. The pair exchanged quick, sharp words for a time, too far away from Altair for him to be able to hear. The rest of the aurors tried to return to inspecting the house, some of them entering the forbidden room and some entering the one Altair had claimed as his bedroom. Most of them, however, just stood still in the room, sending worried, confused looks Altair's way. The boy didn't have to turn around to know that Gian was keeping a watchful eye on him. Finally, the woman finished up her conversation, walking up to Altair slowly like he was some frightened wildlife.

"Hey what's your name?" She asked, kneeling slightly as her warm eyes met Altair's. Despite it all, Altair couldn't help but feel slightly affronted by how she seemed to look at him as if he was some poor, lost puppy.

"You first." Was Altair's knee-jerk response, the boy blinking owlishly at her.

"My name is Rosa." She said, a comforting smile spreading on her face. "We're not here to hurt you, I promise. Fredo, you met him, right?" Altair glanced up at the second man from earlier, who had since turned his back to them to make his way out the front door. "Fredo is going to contact someone from the Department for the Protection of Magical Children, and they'll be here very soon to come get you and take you somewhere safe."

Altair cringed at the name of the department she spoke of. He didn't need protecting, he was fine by himself! "Let me go!" He protested. "I want to leave. I didn't do anything wrong!"

Rosa only shook her head. "We know you didn't do anything wrong, dear. I'm sorry, but we have to pass you onto the department."

"Hey, we got another wand, here!" A wizard called from the doorway to the forbidden room. Altair had been so distracted, he flinched at the man's sudden interjection. The woman gave him a strange, seemingly pitying look as he did. He turned to look at the wand in the man's hand. A white wand with a thin handle.

"Stop, that's mine!" He shouted at the stranger, words coming up unbidden within him as he felt overcome with a possessiveness he could not immediately explain. He even felt his legs move closer to the man with the wand, but Rosa grasped one hand onto his robes to prevent him.

"That's _my _wand!" He growled as the man raised a surprised eyebrow. "Don't take it!"

"Don't worry." Rosa reassured as he struggled. "You can get it back soon. It just needs to be taken in as evidence, first." Altair stopped moving in her grip to turn to her, a snarl on his lips.

"Promise me! Promise I'll get it back?"

"I promise. If it's your wand, the ministry will recognise it as so, and return it to you in time." She said. After her words, a sharp crack sounded outside the open door of the house, and the auror from earlier reappeared with an older, wrinkled man, who spotted Altair at once as he entered through the door.

"Who is that?" Altair asked Rosa, even though he knew already.

"That's someone from protective services, he'll take care of you and find you somewhere to stay until we can find someone from your family."

_Family?_

"I told you my name," Rosa said after a few beats of silence. "But you never told me yours."

Altair pursed his lips. "I'm Altair. I don't have any family. Just mother and father."

"Bellatrix Lestrange has two sisters." Rosa replied. "I'm sure one of them would be happy to have you, if you are her son."

_Sisters?_

He had aunts?

Altair let himself be taken away soon after. Though it wasn't without a final solemn glance at the white wand as he was led outside the broken house and its broken wards.

* * *

Italian words used in this chapter:

Porco cane - for god's sake! (lit. pig dog)

Merda - shit!

Figlio di puttana - son of a bitch

Per favore - please

Dio mio - oh my god


	5. Chapter 5

Lily spotted the muggle man immediately as she entered the restaurant. The place was quiet, dim lighting giving the place a soft and calming glow. Alexander's face lit up as he noticed her approach, the lights of the candles on the table accentuating the features on his handsome face.

"Lily, you look beautiful tonight." He grinned as he stood, rushing to the other side of the table to pull back on the seat for her. Sitting down,she felt herself blush at his words and gentlemanly action. Even though it wasn't their first date anymore, Alexander still made her stomach feel like it had an army of butterflies in it.

She was still a bit unused to the attention, she supposed.

"Thank you, Alex." She smiled back, glancing down at his tanned hands to notice a bit of dirt underneath his fingernails. The man's eyes followed her gaze, before he stuttered and hid his hands behind his back, embarrassed.

"Oh, er…" he stuttered. "You know, I was in a bit of a rush to get here. I should've washed up a bit more, I-"

Lily let out a little laugh at the man's nervousness. "It's okay! We're all rushed, these days. I'd be surprised if my favourite florist had a perfect manicure."

The man sat back down again, laughing slightly and rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. "I just had to repot some plants. Almost forgot them before I left." He gazed up at her, eyes crinkling around the edges as he trailed off.

"What's it been like lately, in your world?" He asked her. He had his eyes on the wine menu now, head turning to one side and brow creasing at the sheer number of options at the fancy restaurant as he held it up with one hand.

"I'm sure it must be incredible." He continued, glancing up at her. "The Foreign Wizarding Affairs Department! Meeting people from all over the world. Magical people. Absolutely fascinating."

"Unfortunately, jobs in the wizarding world aren't as glamorous as we always pictured as children." Lily replied, swirling the straw to a glass of water in front of her absently. "When you're a muggleborn, and you're told by a strange adult that you're truly entering a world of magic… well, real life never does work out quite as perfectly as you imagined it."

"You're right, I say. I mean, I must admit I don't know an awful lot about this world you and my Marigold are in… sometimes I feel quite in over my head…" Alexander laughed.

"Don't worry Alex, I'm sure you're doing wonderfully." Lily grinned, reaching forward to rest her hand against the man's atop the table. "People often forget how difficult it can be for the parents of muggleborns. If you ever need any help with Marigold, there are many people in the magical community you can ask. Muggleborns, half-bloods… honestly in this day and age, most people have at least one non-magic relative. And of course, I can help you, too."

"Yes, yes you're right, Lily. Thank you." The man smiled back, body deflating a little in his chair as he relaxed slightly. Outside the window, a group of disgruntled, drunken muggle men passed by, their voices unintelligible to the pair as they stumbled past the restaurant.

"There are so many things about your world that still surprise me. Marigold was telling me all about her O. she has to do in a couple of years and, well... her textbooks feel like they're written in a different language sometimes." The man's blue eyes had lit up at the mention of his daughter, about to begin her fourth year at Hogwarts. "It's like being in a totally foreign land, right here in the heart of London, even! I hope you don't find me to be too… different? Boring?"

Lily looked sympathetically at the nervous muggle. A red shade painting his cheeks had been present since she had arrived, testament to the florist's nervous personality.

"Last week I worked with a group of Nigerian diplomats for an upcoming gala." She said, lifting her glass up to take a sip through the straw. Condensation had seeped through it and wet her hands as she placed it back down again, swallowing. "However different or foreign people think they are, we're really all the same after we spend enough time figuring each other out. Nobody's really that different at the end of the day. Nobody's boring, either."

And with those words, the pair sank into an easy conversation. Wine brought forth giggles from their lips as they spend the next hour joking about everything from the other tipsy patrons around them to the intricacies of quidditch.

"But I just don't understand, Lily!" Alexander had gasped, a light flush on his cheeks as he pouted. Lily's chest shook with laughter at the ludicrousness of the expression. The man was well in his mid-30s, yet he still managed to look _cute._

"Why do they even have a _snitch _guy? What's the point? He's worth 150 points if he gets a tiny ball. That's not well balanced at all!"

"I don't _know _why the seeker exists." Lily said back, matching the man's whiny, giggly tone. "James said he reckoned the position was invented after some rich jerk's son wanted to be special. That's why he liked chaser better." Images of Gryffindor red robes above a green sports field crossed her mind. A boy in the distance with wild black hair sped towards Slytherin goal posts, quaffle in hand.

Alexander sniffed. "What a silly position."

"He teased the house seeker sometimes." Lily said. "But he still valued seekers, just the same. Pureblood tradition, I guess they are."

"My Charlotte was a really big fan of Manchester United." Alexander said seriously, nodding at Lily. "I never had the first clue what she was on about. She was- she was _something_."

Lily understood. It was strange in a way, how Charlotte Wagner had brought the two together, technically. Alexander had only been in the Ministry of Magic with his daughter in the first place to check whether his long-since deceased wife had been magical. Lily knew of several cases where a wizarding parent had passed away before a child had reached Hogwarts age, leaving a remaining muggle parent with a big surprise knocking on their door. The legacy of the last wizarding war had led to a few muggleborn single parents contacting the Department of Records, trying to find out if their children were indeed true muggleborns or not.

"She may not have known quidditch," Lily started, holding up her glass of wine. "But she sounded cool."

"If she was a witch after all," Alexander hummed. "She probably would've wanted to be a chaser, like James Potter was."

"To the sports nerds, probably nerding away in heaven right at this very moment." Lily clanged her glass against his and took another mouthful.

Lily had been reluctant to date other men for years after her husband's death. One day she had even said to Sirius, her best friend, that she would never date again. The man had gasped, scandalised. It had taken months for him to convince her to even be so much as open to meeting another man after that confession.

"You've mourned long enough." Sirius had said. "Merlin, we've all mourned long enough, Lily. Rob is nearly old enough to go to Hogwarts. You're barely into your thirties. James wouldn't have wanted you to become an old widow all alone."

A string of awkward first dates later, and the witch felt like she had only wasted her time. Wizard after wizard had either kept digging into her about her past, or tried to one-up her in some snobbish way she knew some men simply couldn't restrain themselves from doing when they were intimidated by women. It was after one particularly unpleasant date where the man had gone straight to _The Prophet _'s gossip columnist to brag about "snagging the Potter widow" that Lily had suspended all dating plans altogether.

It was as if lady fate herself had intervened, because it was only a few weeks later that a confused muggle man had burst into the doors of her department at the ministry, helplessly lost with a young muggleborn daughter snickering behind him at his confusion.

"Is this the record department? With all the records?" He had asked Lily dumbly after approaching her desk. And just like that, Lily got to spend a good half hour directing an attractive, yet clueless man to the department he needed. She even ended up with a card with a muggle phone number on it. The man was completely unaware that the pretty woman with no wedding ring on her finger was actually someone most people in the wizarding world knew. And with that ignorance in mind, Lily had called him that very same night.

The man had gasped when he heard that "Ms. Potter"s first name was in fact Lily. Lily had assumed in that moment that he had recognised her name regardless of his non-magic status. Much to her surprise, the man only launched straight off in a monologue about his favourite lily flower sitting in a pot on his dining table for a good few minutes before he heard Lily's amused laughs in the receiver.

He wasn't like James. Not at all. And Lily found it easier, having long since accepted the fact that she would never see the likes of that mischievous grin, quidditch-flushed cheeks and hazel eyes ever again. She had moved on as best she could. Sirius was right, it wasn't fair to dwell forever on the past.

The couple had made their way out of the restaurant, hand in hand and laughing about a story Lily had remembered about Robert as a little boy, before a tall, dark haired man crossed their path. He wore plain black robes and his face displayed a grim expression.

"Sirius?" Lily gasped. "What are you doing here?"

"Sorry, Lily. Sorry, handsome man." Sirius said, giving Alexander a polite nod. Alexander let out a tight, strained noise.

"Important thing just come up all of a sudden. Work stuff, you know?" Sirius said, hitting Alex awkwardly in the shoulder with one hand, the muggle stumbling slightly at the force. "Anyways, Lily, can I speak to you for a moment? Big, big work thing to talk with you about _right now_."

Lily frowned. She had mentioned to Sirius before leaving work that day about where she was going, but the man had _never _decided work was more important than play on a Friday night.

"Sirius... it's a pleasure to meet you. Lily's told me a bit about you." Alexander held out a hand for Sirius to shake, swaying slightly from the alcohol. The pair gave a quick handshake, Sirius quite out of character with his curtness.

"Please, Lily? Now?" Lily felt like Sirius hadn't acted so off-brand in years. He had endlessly pestered her about her 'mystery man', and on his first meeting he hadn't even one witty thing to say. She felt the effects of the alcohol dissipate in a second from the implications.

"Of course, Sirius. Sorry, Alex, we'll just be a moment." Lily quickly followed Sirius as he led her into a small courtyard lined with daisies next to the restaurant. The place was lit up, but had since been emptied as the hours passed.

"What is it Sirius? What's Fudge done now?"

"No. It's not Fudge" Sirius only said, marching up to an empty set of chairs and plopping himself on it. Lily noticed for the first time how pale Sirius looked despite only being in the dim light of the courtyard.

"Well, it's kinda Fudge. I mean, he sent me the floo call. In person I might add, lucky me."

The man seemed to procrastinate continuing for a moment. Lily almost spoke up once more before he opened his mouth again.

"It's the Lestranges. They've been found."

Lily sat down at the second seat, a million different thoughts rapidly entering her mind. " _What? _They're _alive? _How? _Where? _"

Sirius held his hands up in a show of surrender as Lily launched off her questions.

"Italian aurors tracked them to a string of muggle murders in Tuscany, and traced them back to a house. It happened _weeks _ago, but the minister has kept it under wraps pretty damn tightly."

Lily gasped. "_Italy?_" Sirius nodded gravely, hands bunching into fists at his sides.

"Yep. The Wizengamot will want to extradite them for sure. But ever since You-Know-Who, we've never been able to restore relations with the Italians. We could leverage the French Ministry, but-"

"Sirius, stop." Lily interrupted, concern over her friend leaving the intricacies of their jobs the last thing on her mind. "Are you okay? Bellatrix was part of your family."

"Uh, yeah, I'll be alright." Sirius reassured, leaning back in his chair. His pale face said otherwise "Even though they weren't caught here, it's good that they're… not loose anymore. Bella and Rodolphus are legendary for being massive gits."

He paused there, eyes travelling up to the starless sky, deep in thought.

"Oh and there's one more thing…" Sirius muttered. He held onto that line, procuring his wand from his robes to cast a quiet _tempus_.

"Bugger, it's already ten o'clock. International portkey service is down for maintenance till morning." The man clenched his jaw in frustration. The clock disappeared in a show of white mist before them as he shoved his hands into his pockets.

"The aurors also found a boy in a cellar. They say he's Altair Lestrange, a son. Around ten or so."

Lily's eyes widened. _A son?_

"Could such a thing be possible, Sirius? I never would have thought Bellatrix Lestrange could be capable…"

"They already did a parental spell check. Boy's name checks out on all the obvious identity spells, too. There were never any rumors about Bella being pregnant, but with magic, people can hide that sort of thing, ya know? I'd imagine that women would've been eager to announce an addition to the _pureblood,_" his voice went comically shill at this word, "race. But fuck, what do we know about how the inner circle worked?"

Lily conjured Bellatrix Lestrange's face in her mind's eye. The woman had always looked like something out of a child's nightmare whenever the muggleborn was unlucky enough to have encountered her. She was short-tempered and prone to torture, and Lily cringed at the idea of the woman raising a child. The father, Rodolphus Lestrange, would have been little better.

"But still. They've been on the run nearly ten years." Lily uttered. "They successfully hid a child, this entire time?" Sirius only shrugged, as baffled as her.

"What will happen to the boy, then?" Lily asked. "They found him in a _cellar? _" Her stomach twisted uncomfortably at the thought. An innocent child, growing up on the run, undiscovered for so long. And with Lestranges as parents. _Found in a cellar. _Merlin knows what the state of him could be. Sirius sighed at her words, a cold look on his face that showed his line of thought taking a similar trajectory. They mulled in silence for a time before he started speaking again.

"Bella was always pretty bad, but I wouldn't have thought she could do anything seriously harmful to any child of hers. Kid's probably weird, probably had loads of propaganda shoved down his throat since birth and all, but hopefully not really too… you know…"

_Damaged._

"Narcissa Malfoy will probably take custody. A Black heir would be pretty important to her, especially now her son's not the only one anymore." Sirius said, scoffing. "Andromeda was disowned by the Blacks, any claim she could have over him would be pretty weak."

"Not to mention Fudge and half the Wizengamot live in Lucius Malfoy's pocket." He sneered. The likes of the Malfoys had always left a bad taste in his mouth. Lily thought back to the Malfoy matriarch. Calling her unpleasant would be an understatement.

"But more importantly for us, we're gonna have to deal with all the bullshit that's going to come from dealing with _Italy _of all places." Sirius shivered. "Fudge said the Italian ministry is pretty determined to keep the Lestranges in their own prison, given all the havoc they've had on the muggle population. Not to mention Merlin-knows-what shit they've been up to for the past decade."

"So let me guess." Lily began. "He's called us in for weekends?"

"That's just the start. I'd be taking a few pepper ups, if I were you." Sirius joked. Some colour had returned to his face, but he still looked decently shell-shocked. Still emotionally reeling. Lily supposed she would be too, come morning when it would all hit her again. After not hearing a peep from the Lestrangers after the war, the ministry as well as the old Order of the Phoenix had presumed them long dead. Perhaps they shouldn't have been so optimistic.

"Anyway," Sirius sighed. "At least that guy you're seeing seems alright."

"Yeah, he's nice." Lily said.

"You'd best get back to him. I'll talk to you later, yeah?" Sirius finished, standing up and disapparating on the spot after giving her one last look.

Yes, she really should, she thought, remembering the odd man she had left on the street.

* * *

This chapter is the shortest of the ones I've drafted up so far, so sorry if you were expecting something a bit longer. Feel free to leave a comment to let me know how you think it's going so far. I've already drafted a fair bit, but I still love to get new ideas from other people about where the story might go!


	6. Chapter 6

_"Brandishing my wand from my beautiful robes, I took a vaillant step forward in my fight, watching as the snowy creature roared and brandished its long claws. I raised my arm to cast a quick stupefy to no avail, the beast's thick hide only absorbed the crimson spell as it began its thunderous charge towards me. Knowing that the beast could never get the better of I, Gilderoy Lockhart-"_

"Hey there, _amico_." A head popped into the doorway of the small bedroom, Altair's concentration suddenly broken at the man's greeting. The boy put the book down upon the desk and stared at the intruder.

"There's a man from the ministry, wants you to go with him. Apparently there's some people you need to meet." Altair sighed at his minder's words as he took a glance outside the window, the warm light of dusk settling into the room that had become his.

He had exchanged his prison at the house in the Tuscan countryside for another. This time it was a small, cramped wizard's apartment somewhere in Rome. The wizard charged with making sure Altair didn't run off or cause trouble at least had a pretty fun personality. However, he never seemed to let Altair go very far out of his sight. At some point into the extensive interviews the Italian aurors had forced him into they must have concluded him a flight risk. The chipper wizard rarely permitted Altair outside. When he did he was confined only to the crumbling apartment complex's courtyard, feeling akin to a dog on a leash when he would spot the man eyeing him worriedly from an apartment window.

"Oh, I see you've gotten into the books!" Dario exclaimed, marching up to him and picking up the open novel on the desk. "Year with the... Yeti?"

"Big up-and-coming hero in Britain this man is, I've heard." He continued as he began to leaf through the pages. Altair couldn't even feel annoyed at losing his page in the book as the wizard fumbled through it, finding the book's passages reading more like an attempt at an action novel than non-fiction. And a poor attempt at that. While Altair still enjoyed a good adventure story, the novelist's constant mention of his good looks and charm was grating for a kid.

"Anyway," the man placed the book back on the desk, "you have to be there in half an hour. Maybe you would like to brush your teeth? Style your hair a bit?" Dario eyed Altair's wild mop for a moment, the hair spilling down his ears seeming a bit overdue for a cut.

"Okay." Altair responded. The wizard nodded before turning and heading back down the stairs of the apartment. Altair sighed and looked back at the book in front of him before returning it to the pile of literature he'd placed on his bed.

The mound of books were the best ones he'd picked out from the miniature suitcase the wizard had unshrunk from his pocket for him a few days after he arrived. "The ministry let me borrow these books from them while you stay here, isn't that wonderful?" The man had said.

Altair was grateful for the reprieve from his boredom, as the wizard didn't even have a muggle television. Wizard radio alone couldn't hold a candle to it, if Altair was being honest. The books were a mixture of Italian and English, with even a few (unreadable to Altair) ones in French. Altair had piled the most promising lot of books on his bed during the day and had leafed through the more interesting ones. Quickly however, his "read" pile became much bigger than the "unread" pile, causing him to resort to the Gilderoy Lockharts eventually.

He appreciated the books. He really did. He didn't really like that they were becoming a theme in his life, though.

Reading was quickly becoming one of his least favourite things to do, he had thought to himself as the letters on the pages became increasingly difficult to read, blurring against his will upon the paper as the weeks passed. It really felt just like Tuscany all over again. When Dario was home, he often liked to listen to the man's stories. The man was young, only in his mid twenties, and quite charming and handsome to Altair. The boy was relieved beyond belief that he hadn't been landed with some stuffy old witch or wizard to live with as a foster parent, even temporarily.

He had asked Dario why he had decided to enrol as a foster instead of doing more conventional things. Altair couldn't imagine many other people the man's age would who want to take care of annoying kids.

"But you're not annoying to me, dear _amico_. We're friends." The man had said, coming closer to him and petting him on the neck. "I love having a little friend around when I'm not working. Keeps the house feeling happy."

Regardless of the man's kind words, Altair still itched to go onto the streets outside and explore the city. Maybe he could even find the street he lived in for some months a few years ago in Monti. He could go visit that old signora again, the one that always gave him free ice cream from her shop.

He obliged his caretaker and eventually gave his teeth a quick brush in the apartment's tiny bathroom. He even tried to flatten his hair down a bit with his hands. The scar on his forehead was still visible as ever, his black hair only covering it for a few seconds at a time before it sprang back up again. There goes that idea.

Knowing his time was running out, he headed down the stairs of the apartment to see his caretaker and another man standing near the front door.

"Altair Lestrange?" The stranger asked. He was dressed in no nonsense black robes, probably whatever passed for work clothes in the wizarding world, but he had a striking yellow moustache that Altair struggled for a moment to turn his eyes away from.

"Yes?" Altair said.

"Says in one of your files that you went by another name sometimes, too." The man said knowingly. He gave a sly grin, one that made a wave of shock flood through Altair's veins. "Giacomo, was that what it was?"

"How do you know that?" Altair sulked. "The aurors I met before said that they didn't know about me."

"Well we haven't been merely sitting idly by during this time." The moustached man rolled his eyes. "We wouldn't expect the Lestranges to have enrolled you in a muggle school. Very clever for someone your age to figure out such a thing all by yourself."

"I'm used to doing things by myself." The boy crossed his arms.

"Yes. Evidently. You can call me Signore Baresi, by the way." The man said, brandishing his wand out of his robes and opening the front door. Noise of the city seeped out into the entranceway, a honk of a car and a muggle man yelling at something in the distance reaching Altair's ears.

"We've been tracking each and every house your parents lived in, and how long they were there." Baresi said. "It was only after we found you that we realised we had never taken the variable of them having a child into account."

"Come now," he called, making a motion towards the doorway. "You're side-along apparating with me to the ministry. Security measures prevent a direct floo from just any old fireplace, hope you understand." Altair followed behind him after a glance back at the other wizard for a moment, who gave him an encouraging smile.

"One thing, kiddo." Dario said, walking forward to the boy as he was about to leave. "They may rehome you after this. To some place more permanent for the meantime" He said casually. Altair took in his surrounding for a brief moment, eyes gazing at the crumbling apartment he had stayed in with the pseudo-foster carer.

"It was a pleasure to meet you!" The wizard said.

"Y-You too… signore." He stuttered, nervous blush suddenly settling onto his cheeks as he watched the man's features shift into a warm smile.

"I'm sure our paths will cross once more, _amico_." The man laughed, clasping onto Altair's hand and giving it a quick shake. As Altair followed the other wizard past the other apartments in the block and down a few flights of stairs, he realised Baresi was taking him to the courtyard.

"After we found out about you, you know," the yellow moustached wizard piped up unannounced, "it was quite easy to get information from strings of muggle neighbours. Neighbours that had a lot to say about the sweet young ragazzo Giacomo Moretti that came to them asking for food in exchange for helping their children with English. Quite a popular kid with the old nonni too, you were." He finished, reaching the centre of the plain courtyard. The place was filled with only a few half decaying blue and white flowers to broke up the dull, monotonous concrete. The boy didn't feel bad about the prospect of never seeing it ever again.

"Wow, good for you." Altair said, crossing his arms again and mentally preparing himself for the uncomfortable sensation of side-along apparition. Signore Baresi only laughed at his response, grabbing Altair's arm a bit too harshly. Suddenly Altair felt a familiar sensation of being stuffed into a tube much too small for him, the breath being _whooshed _out of his body as his vision turned black. It felt like an eternity before the feeling of being pushed into himself from all directions finally dissipated, his eyes and eardrums feeling like they were back in their proper places again and not in the middle of his brain.

"Off we go then, this way." The signore said, leaving Altair behind in their new surroundings. They had apparated into a narrow, flagstone side street. The city nightlife was beginning to take over the area, a few pubs littering the street busy with patrons as the dusk descended into night. Despite the wizard leaving him behind, Altair suspected he would know quite immediately if he chose to flee. The man didn't seem like an auror, but Altair got the feeling that he shouldn't cross him. He followed Baresi through a street and into another winding side alley, where he opened a small brown door to an old building that Altair wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't approached it.

"Are we still in Rome?" Altair asked as the man beckoned him to enter. The room inside was dark and absent of furniture, a few lit fireplaces and a dull light hanging from the ceiling the sole occupants of the room. Suddenly, a small group of people dressed in wizarding robes exited the fireplaces one by one, the room flashing a shade of green one could only associate with floo powder as they did. Together the wizards and witches muttered about some business-related jargon, clearly just finishing up work for the day and on their way back to the streets of the city.

"Of course not. We're in Florence." Signore Baresi said as he approached one of the fireplaces. "The Medici family were the ones who largely funded the construction of the Italian ministry the way it is today, centuries ago. Did you really not know such a thing?" He looked quizzically at Altair and the boy felt flustered at the question, heat rising to his face as he immediately felt dumb, like that was something he really should have known.

"I haven't met many wizards. Not my fault." He frowned.

"Not to worry, _Giacomo _." The man said, placing a stress on the final word that made Altair feel a flash of annoyance.

"You can walk in at any time." He said, motioning to the fireplaces before them, hearths reflecting shadows of the red and orange flames. "The wood is infused with a special brand of floo powder so that you don't have to fling any in yourself. Will take you straight to the ministry atrium without you even having to announce your destination."

Altair stared at the flames, feeling the front half of his body warm up from the heat they gave off. The man gave an expectant grin, his head cocking to the side in a way that altogether seemed like he was expecting Altair to hesitate or refuse.

With that, Altair took it upon himself to walk straight into the hot fire, caution to the wind as he felt a stubborn need to show the man he was not a mere child. He felt the flames engulf him, but they were not burning to the touch. The sight of several different empty sitting rooms flashed through his vision before he stumbled out through the other side.

The Italian Ministry of Magic's atrium reminded Altair a bit of the ancient Roman ruins that he had read about in a history textbook. The place was just one colossally large room, filled with wizards going every which direction from many sets of open archways and cutouts along the walls, piling up several stories. The boy lifted his head back to see a huge, ornate dome as a ceiling high above him, and columns upon columns scaling the walls with mostly black and gold trim. In the middle stood a statue of a group of wizards that Altair had no hope of guessing the identities of. Where the boy stood were rows upon rows of fireplaces, some absent of light and others sporting warm red flames. A quiet roaring sound from behind him reminded him of the signore, and he unfroze his legs to move a few steps aside for him to pass through.

He wordlessly followed the man through the atrium, listening with half an ear as the man rambled on about some Medici family and the architectural inspiration they had received from the Pantheon in Rome. They had to walk slower through throngs of men and women leaving work for the fireplaces, but no one really gave them much attention as they went. Altair paused only once to marvel at a brilliant white snowy owl sitting atop the shoulder of an old, greyed wizard reading a newspaper in a corner. He had only ceased walking for a second before he felt a firm grip take hold of his wrist.

"Be careful now. Don't want you to get lost." Baresi gave him a dark look as he spoke. Altair stumbled the rest of the way, his shorter legs struggling to keep up with the man as he refused to let go. They walked through a large columned archway, one of many that lined the atrium. After a short trip in a dizzying elevator and a walk through a plain corridor they had finally reached their destination at last. The signore opened a rather innocuous door halfway down the corridor and shooed Altair in. Altair glanced at the door on his way in to see _Department for the Protection of Magical Children _titled in a smooth, swirly script on its wood in a few different languages.

"You've been here once before, correct?" Baresi asked, moving into the room to the receptionist desk. The place was sparse aside from a few old couches in the corner and the front desk, where a rather severe looking old woman sat. It was clearly a waiting area, and ironically not really one very child-friendly.

"Si, but not for long." Altair said. "They only took me here to meet Dario and then we portkeyed out. I spent most of my time where the aurors were."

"Oh! That must have been your first time seeing the atrium, then?" Beautiful thing of Italian architecture is it not?" The wizard remarked.

"Yeah. It was cool." Altair responded, looking at one of the old, patchy couches and wondering if he could sit.

"Lestrange. Go straight through. Door three." The receptionist cut through in a no nonsense voice, one that reminded Altair a little of Mrs Boni. "The other, ehem, _guests _, have just arrived." She said to the signore, utterly ignoring Altair.

"Who am I supposed to be meeting?" He demanded. "The next person supposed to take care of me? I've told you, I just want to be left alone."

"Oh no, dear child. Someone else. Someone very _special _, I'm sure." Baresi simpered, bending down to the eleven year old's eye level mockingly as he spoke.

Altair scoffed. "Whatever." He muttered, stomping down the hallway to the instructed door.

" _Porco cane _. Children these days." Altair heard the wizard say as he marched away. "That one's trying to act like some teenager when he's barely schooling age."

"What would you expect, who knows what those awful British wizards did to the poor thing?" The old woman remarked. Altair felt uncomfortable at her words. They weren't entirely a surprise to him. Given where he was found by the aurors, everyone that he met seemed to have made up their own minds about his entire life. Made assumptions. He couldn't bring himself to trust any of them when all they did was look at him like he was some poor, hurt _baby_.

Altair stopped in front of the door, unexpectedly nervous for the first time. He opened it, and was greeted only by a woman sitting stiffly on a chair in the middle of the room. A table was in front of her, with several rolls of parchment unwrapped on top of it. Behind her, a man stood with a similarly stiff gaze, wearing large spectacles that made his eyes look twice the size Altair considered normal.

The woman was wearing fancy looking robes, the kind Altair had never seen on anyone in _Quartiere Mezzanotte_, or anywhere else. They looked almost regal in their luxury. She had her blonde hair styled in a tight bun and accessorised with a few glittering jewels. When she saw him enter the room, her eyes widened. Altair watched her take in his face, his hair, and then his clothing, a simple muggle t-shirt and jeans Dario had at his house. Her eyes travelled back up towards his eyes, and then briefly up towards his hair again.

Whatever she had been expecting when Altair entered, he clearly wasn't it.

The man standing behind her shuffled forward awkwardly, clearly expecting the woman to say the first word. When she was silent, simply staring at Altair in a way that had the boy feeling as though he was being watched by a bird of prey, the man finally broke the silence in the room.

"Altair Lestrange?" He started. Altair looked at him, eyebrows furrowing slightly in confusion. "My name is Wilfred Kettlebrew. And I am a lawyer for the Most Ancient and Noble House of Malfoy. Please take a seat, young master." He gestured to a chair opposite the woman, who had not even blinked since Altair had entered.

The boy paused for a moment, his brain taking a few moments to remember the English language. He walked cautiously to the chair before sitting down, not quite sure what to make of the two adults. The three all sat in a tense silence for a few long seconds before the woman finally spoke.

"Hello, Altair." She said, gaze locked with his. "My name is Narcissa Malfoy. I am your mother's sister, and your next of kin."

Altair leaned back reflexively, unsure of what to make of the woman. He had heard her name before, he realised, when his mother would get drunk and ramble on about things in Britain. She would howl and make a fuss about blood traitors while hitting him with the occasional stinging jinx if he looked at her wrong. But he always assumed Narcissa was a potions ingredient, or something. He didn't think this woman would like that very much.

"So you're here to take me?" He asked, English coming out a bit jilted as it did.

The woman hesitated, maybe not expecting the accent falling from his lips. "It will take… some time, if it were to be arranged. I am not sure if you know, given your age, but the British and Italian ministries have not seen eye to eye for many years."

"I know that." Altair said.

"There have been some recent developments." The man, Kettleburn, chimed in. "Developments that have made the relationship deteriorate even more so. I'm afraid anything high profile, even simply a transfer of custody, will take some months."

"So you're not taking me with you, then?" Altair asked, an eyebrow raising.

"Not yet, Altair." Mrs Malfoy said. She broke her gaze away from him for the first time to look impatiently at the other man.

"I believe a short test is in order, right now." She spoke harshly, mouth going into a thin line of displeasure. Altair tensed, not quite sure about what had upset her so suddenly.

"Are you sure?" Kettleburn asked, taking a wand out of his pocket. "The aurors did test him at several stages, to ensure he really was-"

"Yes." The woman stood, drawing her own wand out to point it directly between Altair's eyes. The boy flinched in response, unsure of how to react. "I'll do it myself."

The woman muttered a spell Altair recognised. A soft purple light slipped out of her wand and rebounded off of his head, before it conjured letters that danced softly a foot above him.

_Altair Arcturus Lestrange _it read in a cursive, loopy script, before it faded away into the air.

Altair looked back down to the woman, who near collapsed back into the chair, an elbow resting on the armrest. Altair felt the movement quite unexpected from someone dressed in a style so high class.

"Yes, that's good. Everything is in order there." Kettleburn said, oblivious as he grabbed one of the scrolls from the table, skimming it.

It took a moment, but the woman lifted her head up to gaze into Altair's eyes once more. Her eyes flickered to his forehead before she spoke again.

"Funny little scar you have there, don't you dear?" She asked, posture once more returning to its rigid, proper state. "Tell me, how did you get such a thing?"

"I don't know." Altair said, and it was the truth. "My parents never told me."

"Strange little thing, isn't it?" Mrs Malfoy remarked, once more looking at the lightning bolt. "I'm sure it would be a very interesting tale."

"But I don't know it." Altair only said. A tense silence fell over the room, the seconds stretching out as no one said anything else. It was only broken once more by the man.

"Master Lestrange." He began, looking up from the roll of parchment that he had been inspecting. "We have managed to, ehm, _convince _this department to have you given to another individual on a more permanent basis for the upcoming months. One with much better accommodations for you than the likes of Dario Segreto, given your status."

"Status?" Altair said. He didn't realise he had… _status _. Although, given the Malfoy woman's clothing, he guessed it was perhaps her status that was affecting everything, not his.

"We have to be going now." Mrs Malfoy said stiffly. "But don't worry, boy. I will be visiting you again soon."

"Oh." Altair deadpanned, surprised. "Okay then."

The boy left the room behind him, thoughts consumed by family lineages and strange scars.

* * *

Italian words used in this chapter:

Amico - friend

Ragazzo - boy

Nonni - grandparents

Porca puttana - pig whore (I don't know if this makes sense contextually, I just found it on a website about Italian swears and thought it was hilarious and deserved to be said)


	7. Chapter 7

"C'mon, Mum!" Robert Potter called as his mother approached. "It's time to go to, right now!" The boy's red locks were a mess as he paced the length of the island counter in the Potter house's kitchen, already fully dressed and looking every bit the part of an overexcited soon-to-be first year.

"Calm down, Rob." Lily said as she passed him by, a morning coffee the only thing on her mind as her son bounced on his heels. "It's hardly six in the morning. Most of the stores aren't even open yet."

"But I want to go _now_." Her son sulked, as impatient as ever. "We can go to Madam Malkin's at seven, then by the time we're finished both Amanuensis Quills and Ollivanders will have opened and we can go to them next!"

"We have all day, sweetheart." Lily reminded as she switched the muggle coffee maker on, the sound of coffee grounding reverberating through the homey cottage kitchen. "Patience is a virtue." She said to a groaning Robert.

The boy ruffled his thick hair at her words, the ginger locks becoming even more of a bird's nest at his anxious habit. Lily felt the beginnings of a smile tug at her cheeks despite the early morning as she watched him, knowing that he wouldn't stop badgering her until the very moment they flooed out of the house. The things he would do often reminded her of herself at his age. However, it was his impatience, stronger than most of his peers, that seemed a trait entirely his own. She filled a mug, her favourite one filled with pictures of tabby cats, and let the calming bitter scent of coffee waft up to her.

"Have you eaten yet?" She asked as he sat down dejectedly at the breakfast bar. He nodded, pushing around an empty cereal bowl on the countertop. "Good. I hope you haven't eaten all of the cheerios." Lily said, opening a pantry door with one hand.

"Can't we get a house elf, mum?" Robert asked. "Anthony's parents have two, now! Wolkey and Zimky are really so happy there, they were even excited to cook us breakfast in the morning, and everything!"

"I've told you a thousand times, Robert." Lily sighed, grabbing a bowl for herself. "House elves only want to do those things because they are raised to think it's their purpose. They aren't born wanting to serve wizards."

Lily stayed her mouth with the other directions she wanted to go with the topic of house elves, knowing how susceptible children were to simply parrot the ideas of their parents without much thought. Ever since 1981 they had remained firmly in the public eye, and despite the general public's fondness for them, she found it hard to believe they would be very understanding of her disapproval of centuries of wizarding tradition.

"Well, if you say so," Robert said, pursing his lips in thought as she poured cereal into her own bowl.

Only half an hour later (still an eternity for the child in the house), Lily had gotten herself ready and dressed for the day. "I'll go first!" Robert announced the moment she entered the living room, racing over to the fireplace with a shout of "Diagon Alley!" as large green flames briefly lit up the room. With a soft laugh, Lily followed.

The shopping district was much busier than the last time she had visited, filled up with other Hogwarts students and their parents doing much the same as her and Robert. Even the store fronts had changed, too.

_Two for one cauldrons! Today only! Buy now and save for when your little darling adds too much elfroot to their mix!_ An advert on Potage's Cauldron Shop read, with a cartoonish picture of a wide-eyed pigtailed girl and a rather exaggeratedly blown-up student's cauldron next to her.

Every nook and cranny of the alley had something to fill it, whether it be shops selling bizarre and expensive silver instruments, barrels upon barrels of mysterious animal parts, or peddlers trying to con the more naive witch or wizard into their charmed jewellery. The chatter of people filled the alley, only broken up by snippets of the hoarse shouting of salespeople.

"Eel eyes! Get your eel eyes!" An old shaggy witch called, standing precariously on a barrel. "Half price, sale ends today! Only four sickles a stone!"

"You can go to Madam Malkin's first, if you want." Lily said, looking down at her son and seeing familiar green eyes take in all around him with a childish joy. While Lily ended up popping down to Diagon Alley only every few months for supplies, Robert rarely came and when he did, it was never as busy as it was at that moment. The number of witches and wizards ambling around them made Lily hesitant to slow down as she was speaking to him, knowing the high likelihood of someone bowling them over. "When you're getting fitted," she continued, moving aside briefly as a tall witch hurried past them, "I can take some money out at Gringotts."

"No! Can I come to Gringotts as well please, mum?" Robert begged, looking up at the white marble building ahead of them that towered over the other shops. "I've only been once before, I want to go again."

"Alright, if that's what you want." Lily said. "But as long as you promise not to get sick again, like last time."

"I was little, then." Robert pouted. "I'm not gonna get sick. I'm eleven, now." The mother remembered how green her son's face looked the first and last time he travelled on a Gringotts cart a few years prior, coughing and spluttering the moment the cart came to a stop. To his credit, he had continued to insist that he was fine the entire time in a show of uniquely Potterish stubbornness.

"As long as you don't vomit on a goblin's shoes, they won't like you much for that." Lily said as they reached the heart of the street, the goblin bank towering over them from where it stood across the road.

Beyond the double doors and the scowling goblin guards revealed the ornate white entrance hall of the bank. Robert threw her a glare she supposed was meant to be intimidating, yet only achieved the same level of threatening as a puppy. He gave surreptitious glances at the new sights as the pair made their way through the building. Much like the street outside, the bank was crowded with witches, wizards and magical creatures. The long counters were filled to the brim with goblin bank tellers, speaking in various tongues to hordes of customers. Nearby, a group of unnaturally tall men conferred with a frustrated looking goblin, and next to them a tiny, squeaky house elf levitated a vault key up to a teller.

Luckily, the bank seemed to have anticipated the rush of business that day. With the bank fully staffed, the Potters only had to wait in a short queue before being served.

"Yes, yes, vault number, please." The sitting goblin snapped as Lily approached, without even taking his eyes away from sheets of paper stacked atop the high counter.

"Vault 687, Potter." Lily spoke loudly through the chatter in the hall. At her words, the goblin immediately pulled his head up, taking in the pair with watchful eyes. He squinted at them curiously as he pulled his body up on his chair to watch them.

"Ah yes, Mrs Lily Potter." He said, beady eyes going back and forth between the two. "Nurgok will take you down." He then shouted something in gobbledegook to someone behind the counter, who emerged quickly to take them down to the Potter family vault.

Robert hesitated as the goblin cart door opened once they had reached the entrance to the underground.

"On second thought actually," he said, licking his lips nervously. "I might just… stay here this time, mum."

Lily gave him a knowing look.

"Won't be too long, dear." She said, before turning to Nurgok. "Is he okay to stay here, or?"

The goblin grunted, saying something inaudible before shrugging and ambling into the cart.

"Don't get up to any trouble." Lily gave her son a small grin before she followed.

"Okay!" He called back, as the cart sped off down into the depths below.

Lily placed a quick hand onto the back of her head to grab her long hair, the other one clutching to the cart tightly as it raced down the cavern towards the family vault. It was a fast journey down, the cart filling up with the noises of Lily laughing to herself as the track swung left and right. She still remembered the first time she had rode into the depths of Gringotts, and she felt like a little girl again every time she went.

"Key, please." Nurgok the goblin politely asked after the cart came to a stop. Fishing it out of her pocket, Lily stepped forward to hand the item to him as they approached the vault. The goblin inserted the key into the lock and the vault door made a loud _click_, double doors opening to reveal stacks of galleons, sickles, and nuts. Behind the piles of wizarding currency lie a various collection of knick knacks that had been left in the vault after Robert's grandparents passed away. Lily spotted boxes she knew contained some heirlooms, ceremonial robes that dated back to Merlin-knew-when, and a few books unmarked by the passage of time by well-maintained preservation charms on a shelf in the corner.

Without trouble, she took all the money she needed from the vault, returning at record time back up to her son on the surface. He had moved only onto the floor, right hand etching some little drawing onto the dirt below. He whipped his head up as she approached, shaking his head from side to side to get his hair out of his eyes.

"We need to get you a haircut before your birthday." Lily said, absently ruffling the auburn locks as he stood up. "Your hair is much too shaggy when it's this long."

"It'll be like that anyway even if it's short." Robert pouted as they went back up the staircase leading to the entrance hall. "I like it longer. It's more fun."

"I would still much prefer it cut shorter." Lily said as they entered the room full of goblin bank tellers and customers once more, their surroundings filling with noise.

"I'm going to cut it after we get home. No ifs or buts, Rob." She finished. Her son let out a depressed sigh and folded his arms grumpily.

"Lily Potter!" A voice gasped out in the distance. Lily looked around for where the noise was coming from in the crowded bank to see a short, pudgy wizard racing over to them from several meters away. "Lily Potter and Robert Potter! Is that really them?" He yelled, old wrinkled face staring wide eyed at them as he caught the attention of several other customers, who all turned to face them.

"Merlin!" A woman beside them gasped, literally clutching at the pearls around her neck. "Lily Potter, the _Vanquisher!_ Oh, please ma'am, may I shake your hand?" Lily gave a tight smile to the woman as she obliged, the woman's gloved fingers clutching hers somewhat desperately as Robert fidgeted uncomfortably beside her. The short man raced to their side and insisted on shaking both their hands as well, blabbering on about the two and attracting even more attention from the people surrounding them. Even some goblins seated on the high counters stopped in their work, craning their necks to see better as the crowd around them grew.

Lily uttered some words of apology at the group of starstruck witches and wizards and gripped one of Robert's shoulders to guide them quickly out of the bank and away from the excited eyes. Quickly they joined the throngs of shoppers on the main street.

"Robes now?" Robert asked, not skipping a beat. While Lily felt she would never get used to the attention and the stares, the boy had unfortunately seemed to have only come to expect such from the wizarding world. The mother had made a point of trying to have him socialised as much as possible in the wizarding world, at least so she wouldn't have to worry about how him being alone when he started schooling, but their public profile made things hard.

"Yes, and then we can get you your wand." Lily smiled, guiding her son back up the twisting cobblestone pathway to Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions.

"My wand!" Robert exclaimed excitedly. "Oh man, I can't wait!" He bounced up towards the robe shop in the distance, spotting the sign out front and leaving Lily in the dust.

"Hogwarts, dear?" Madam Malkin asked Robert as Lily entered the shop. "Just stand right there, next to the other boys."

Malkin pointed offhandedly to a fitting stand in a corner of the shop, next to where two blond boys stood with flying measuring tapes fluttering around them. Lily stopped in her tracks when she spotted a stiff woman standing near the door, clothed in an elaborate green set of robes that screamed old, pureblood money.

"Mrs Malfoy." She said, going to stand next to the woman as they waited. She had planned on going to the quill shop next door to pick out some writing supplies for home, but she wouldn't trust the pureblood woman alone with her son for a second.

"Mrs Potter." The woman greeted back coldly. The two stood uncomfortably in the shop as a third measuring tape flew back and forth around Robert, who followed the lead of the other boys and stood still. the one standing closest to him was doubtlessly the Malfoy heir, if the snooty expression on his face was anything to go by. The other, shorter and with more natural hair as opposed to the obnoxiously slicked back style of the other blond, stood somewhat uneasy next to the Malfoy. An awkward air filled the room as some quiet shuffling noises filled the back storeroom, Madam Malkin working away on some other matter as her charmed tape worked for her.

"Hogwarts, too?" The little Malfoy asked Robert, taking in his appearance and glancing back at Lily with a judgemental stare. "Are you a Weasley?" He said in an almost accusatory tone, cold eyes settling on Robert's red hair.

"No Draco, these are the Potters." The Malfoy matriarch said, a smile Lily saw right through plastered on her face. "And you must be Robert Potter, I presume?" She took a step forward, directing her smile at Robert.

"Yes." Robert deadpanned, seeming to be unaware of the tension in the room. He watched the magical tape as it measured every minor part of his body, as if captivated.

"Apologies for my son, Mrs Potter." Mrs Malfoy simpered, not looking away from Robert. "After all, with hair such a colour, _styled_ in such a manner," the woman's left lip twitched slightly, "one cannot fault a boy Draco's age for confusing him with such stock." Lily's eyes narrowed as the words left her lips.

"Huh, well you're better than this other one, already then." Draco Malfoy sneered, head motioning to the other blond boy in the room.

"I don't understand why you're being so mean to me. I'm just as much a wizard as you are. That's what Professor Sprout said." The boy said nervously, eyes downcast. Lily felt a wave of sympathy overcome her, wondering what horrible thing the Malfoy boy must have said before they arrived. Robert lifted his head up as well, a keen eye on the two.

"Just as much of a wizard?" The Malfoy boy huffed. "Why, you're nothing more than a… than just a mud-"

"Hey! Shut up, you tosser!" Robert spat, posture growing rigid as he gave the Malfoy a challenging stare. "Don't you dare talk to him like that!"

"Robert, stop." Lily interrupted, though she herself felt beyond shocked at the words leaving the Malfoy boy's mouth. So easily, too.

Suddenly, Madam Malkin exited the storeroom. She seemed entirely unaware of the potential storm brewing in her establishment as she approached them.

"Sorry for keeping you all so long!" She said. "Busy month, what with Hogwarts in just a couple of weeks!"

"It's not a problem." The Malfoy woman said, not deigning to look at the stylist. "Come, Draco. I'm sure the Madam knows where to send your robes." It was then she shifted her gaze to the other woman, head held high so she could stare down more effectively at her.

"Of course, Mrs Malfoy! They will be in by the end of the week!" Madam Malkin stuttered.

"Make it by tomorrow." Narcissa Malfoy responded, turning on her heel and looking like the other woman had somehow personally offended her just by existing. "Good day, Mrs Potter, dear Robert." She simpered, turning to the exit with her head still held ever obnoxiously high.

The Malfoy matriarch had turned the handle to the door before pausing. Lily felt a wave of annoyance and worry wash over her briefly, thinking perhaps the woman would go for a second round of pompous, pureblood behaviour. But surprisingly, Narcissa Malfoy only turned her head, face suddenly devoid of expression, even her standard one of general distaste Sirius liked to call the pureblood "I've-just-stood-in-poop" face. The woman simply stared at Lily, seemingly considering saying something.

But within seconds, the moment was gone. Mind made up over whatever it was that had been on her mind, Narcissa Malfoy left the robe shop without another word, son trailing at her heels.

"Don't worry about them." Lily heard Robert say to the other boy as she watched the Malfoy's retreating backs from the store windows. "They're just nasty people. I promise most people aren't like that."

"What was it he wanted to call me?" The boy asked. "I'll have you know my name was down for Eton. I'm not dirty, I bet my father makes more money than his!"

"Oh." Lily heard Robert say, apparently a bit confused at the boy's unusual response. "Yeah, I'm sure he does."

The boy quickly introduced himself as Justin Finch-Fletchley, and the two of them had a short conversation about Hogwarts as their fittings finished up. Pomona Sprout arrived after a few minutes to collect the boy, with two somewhat shell-shocked looking muggle parents not far behind her. After Robert's own fitting, the Potters left the shop to head to Ollivanders, the excitement obvious in the boy's demeanour as he strode up to the store front.

"One thing, Rob." Lily said, pausing at the door to the wand shop. Robert looked up at her exasperatedly as he shuffled from side to side, staring at the boxes of wands from where he could see them behind the dusty glass windows. His excitement was palpable.

"Do you really like your hair, Rob? A bit longer, like the way it is now?" She asked, taking in his wild locks and thinking of the pureblood woman's words earlier.

"Yeah, I do. Please can we go in?" Robert begged, not even looking at his mother in favour of the door to the wand shop.

"Yes, go in, dear." Lily said. "But I've changed my mind about the haircut. Have it as long as you like."

* * *

Updates to this fic should come in pretty quickly up until chapter 15, which (unless I change it some time before I upload) will be the end of the first "part" of this fic. Don't hesitate to leave a comment, even if it's just to say you like it so far~ Comments make my day~


	8. Chapter 8

"Your things have been moved." Booth said, causing Lily's head to shoot up from where her gaze had been.

"Moved?" She asked. She stood in the office, handbag still on her shoulder, staring at her desk. Or what _was_ her desk. It was completely empty, now.

"Yes, quite fortunate for you, Potter." Her superior said. He pointed a thumb down the hallway. "Your new office is in there. A private one."

"_Private?"_ Lily asked, astounded. "Why now? This seems so sudden."

"It appears the Minister has promoted you overnight." Booth said gruffly. The redhead shook her head absently to herself in surprise.

"Well, thank you sir-"

"You know it wasn't me, Potter." The department head drawled, taking out a remembrall in his pocket and shaking it wildly. "It appears Fudge is feeling very pressured to ensure this process goes as smoothly as possible."

Suddenly, the rememberall's grey smoke turned a dark red, and Booth cursed under his breath as his head shot up to look around him. He gave some of Lily's co-workers in the other cubicles quick glances before he spoke again.

"I forgot." He said. "There are two Italian ministry employees that have a meeting with you in... an hour. An auror and a foreign affairs worker." Lily let in a sharp, startled intake of breath.

"Well, off you go then." Booth only said, placing the remembrall back in his robe pocket. "I'm sure you'll do great. It'll be only a formality really, a starting place for negotiations. You remember the briefing, what we want? Of course you do."

An hour later had Lily in an unfamiliar office, items only just stacked away in her desk drawers and paint still fresh on the door. The Italians, a young man in trademark aurors robes and an older woman entered the room. Lily tried her best to make herself seem not quite as unprepared as she felt she was.

_Oh Merlin,_ she thought, _let's see how this mess goes._

"I must say," the auror remarked after introductions, English so fluent Lily would've had a hard time distinguishing the accent. "I was most surprised when I found out that we would be speaking with _the _Lily Potter today, out of all of the others in this department."

Lily leaned back in her chair a little, taking in the wizard's expression. He scrutinised her, but he couldn't hide the look of awe in his eyes.

"Minister Fudge considered myself to be a good employee for the job, as well as others including Sirius Black, who will also be working with me as part of my team." Lily said.

"The woman who defeated the Dark Lord, and her friend famous for defying his powerful pureblood family and sacrificing his own inheritance." The foreign affairs witch said knowingly. "The pair of you are perhaps the only ones working in the British Ministry that our people know and like."

Lily wished Sirius was here, too. The man cracked jokes a mile a minute, but he hadn't lasted in the department for as long as he had without having his own set of persuasive skills. She couldn't help but feel a bit outnumbered alone with the two.

"If you are attempting to suggest that the pair of us are working with you out of an attempt to manipulate…" Lily began.

"No, no, nothing like that." The auror placated, giving a sideways eye to the foreign affairs employee.

"Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange are well contained in our prison." The auror stated sternly as he moved the conversation onwards, folding his arms as his companion kept her face carefully blank. "You British wizards need not bother yourselves with them. They will be trialled and given maximum life sentences for their murders of several muggles in our country."

"But they are wanted in Britain also for the murders of muggles, as well as a great deal more atrocities." Lily carefully said. "Practice of the Dark Arts, the Unforgivable Curses, torture, false imprisonment, conspiracy against the ministry-"

The foreign relations witch waved a hand, causing Lily to stop in her tracks. "You don't think they haven't also done similarly terrible things in _Italia _as well_,_ Lily Potter?" The woman raised her eyebrows.

"They were found with a young wizard in their cellar." The witch continued. "All those crimes committed in your country, they have also done in ours, with the _addition_ of the possible charge of the abuse of their own child. Still under investigation, of course."

Lily nodded her head understandingly. "Yes, you're correct, signora. However, they are British citizens, and Azkaban has never had a recorded breakout in the many centuries it has operated."

The auror scoffed at her mention of the British prison. "Azkaban…" He trailed off, giving a sarcastic smile. "Yes, the prison with dementors as guards?" Lily was silent at these words, and the man seemed to take note of the reaction, displeasure growing in his demeanour.

"It would be fitting for those two to be in such a cruel, nasty place." He went on. "But _Italia_ will _never_ be known as a nation that passes prisoners onto a place that tortures them daily. Be they a lowly petty criminal, or even a great and powerful _mago oscuro._"

"Not to mention the Lestranges have close family ties to half of your Wizengamot." The witch added on. "How can we trust that your government will not cut them a deal?"

"Rodolphus Lestrange's brother has been imprisoned for ten years now, with no hope of appeal." Lily reminded them. "As well as dozens of other convicted Death Eaters."

"Oh come on, Ms Potter." The witch shook her head in disapproval. "The Crabbes, Goyles, McNairs? The head of the Malfoy house, even? All evaded capture."

"Those wizards were brought to a fair trial and declared innocent of all charges." Lily stated sternly. A wave of old anger washed over her thoughts as she said it though, picturing Lucius Malfoy in particular as he walked triumphantly away from a courtroom in 1981, herself still raw with grief and loss.

The old inner circle families were largely considered by the British wizarding world to have been framed or imperiused, but the Italians knew better, it seemed. She respected them an awful lot more than a lot of her co-workers did for seeing right through them, but she knew the nation had its own problems hidden behind its guise of wizard equality.

Lily knew that, for all the witch and wizards' holier-than-thou talk, they had travelled to her ministry for a reason. Although the Italian wizarding world had better rights for prisoners and those less fortunate, they wouldn't be here unless there was _something_ they wanted.

"Your country indeed was the first and only to initiate a ban on any and all prisoner extraditions given the... _conditions _of Azkaban Prison." _Among other things,_ she thought to herself. "The British Ministry of Magic, in response, has decided that perhaps a…" she paused for maximum effect, watching as the auror inched closer to her slightly in anticipation.

"...prisoner exchange would be a good idea to consider." Lily finished. A stifling silence filled up the room as the two Italians glanced at one another.

"Azkaban does not hold any two Italian prisoners that are as high profile as the Lestranges." The witch said. She was right. There were a few dozen Italians that were currently imprisoned on the island, though most were only petty and nonviolent criminals caught by British aurors. Ever since the Italian ban on extraditing British wizards back home from Italy, the British ministry had clamoured to do the same right back. It had resulted in a decades-long stalemate that had become the bane of Lily's existence multiple times in her career.

"We are happy to negotiate." Lily said, folding her arms onto her desk. "We are sure you have a list of those you wish to take home." The foreign affairs witch nodded immediately.

"We do have a list." She even said.

Lily counted that as a win.

"And the boy…" She began, watching as the pair's faces grew sterner.

"We understand his ties to your country." The auror said. "But he appears to have spent most or all of his life in Italy_. _He knows our language better than your own, even."

"His aunt has already filed with your ministry for his custody." Lily said. "You cannot deny a boy from being with the only family he has left."

"Narcissa Malfoy's husband is Lucius Malfoy." The witch said. "You must understand our… hesitance to honour her request."

"I have seen the papers in Italy. The news broke quite spectacularly last night, did it not?" Lily remarked, thinking back to the sensationalist headlines about a Lestrange son that Sirius had shown her, translating the tabloids as best he could with his rather sloppy Italian. The auror's head quirked to the side slightly at her words, face unreadable as Lily continued speaking.

"The general public is quite split on the matter, aren't they? Must have you in a bit of a bind on what to do."

The witch narrowed her eyes. "We will be cooperating with your child protection department to transfer custody." She said suddenly, surprising Lily. "He will be with his family… eventually."

_After we've spent just enough time looking like we didn't want to do it, so our people don't protest at our front door,_ Lily read.

She felt pity for the boy for the second time since she had heard of him. It mustn't be good for someone so young to be a political pawn in any circumstance.

The two Italians left soon after, leaving Lily in an empty office that she was still not quite sure what to do with. Seeing the clock nearing midday, she felt it was as good a time as any to have a quick break, darting back down the hall to the main desk cubicles again.

"Jones, where's Sirius?" She asked a woman sitting at one of the desks.

"You didn't hear?" Jones said. "Black and Lloyd got their own private office! Just the two of them. Lucky bastards…"

Lily felt her eyebrows climb upwards. _Fudge must be trying really hard to butter us up…_

"Thanks." She said, spinning back around. She wondered how her co-workers would react to her own promotion as she left, given Jones' obvious jealousy.

She made her way down the hallway of private offices once more, stopped a few doors down from hers to see two familiar names newly painted onto a door. She knocked eagerly, and with a yelled "_what is it, now?_", she entered.

Her closest friends, Sirius Black and Yvonne Lloyd, sat in desks facing each other in the office, almost appearing to stare one another down.

"Oh Lily, thank Merlin you are here, dearie." Yvonne sighed, swivelling in her chair to face her. "Now Fudge has gone and done some awfully strange thing and I am forced to look at _that_," she pointed directly at Sirius' face, "all day."

Lily let herself laugh a little at Sirius' betrayed reaction.

"Evie, you wound me!" He gasped, clutching his heart dramatically as he pushed his chair back to hit against the office's large window.

"I just got out of a meeting with two people from the Italian ministry." Lily said, folding her arms and leaning against the wall with one shoulder.

"Really?" Yvonne asked, surprised. "Why ever did Booth not tell us? You were alone?"

"Yes, but it was fine." Lily replied as Sirius anxiously rolled his chair back to his desk, looking almost comical at the desperation with which he did so.

"What happened?" He asked. "What did they say?"

Lily relayed the highlights of the discussion to the two, Yvonne nodded encouragingly, and Sirius alternated between bobbing a knee up and down and playing with a quill on his desk. Lily knew he was listening just as intently, though.

"I've never really worked with the Italians before." Yvonne piped up when Lily finished speaking. The dark-skinned woman shifted a bangle on her arm back and forth as she looked between the other two occupants of the room.

"Ha! That's right, I almost forgot." Sirius remarked, putting a white quill back down on his desk. "Finally, a language you _don't _know."

Yvonne rolled her eyes. "My parents never liked Italy, though I suppose that was quite common for British wizards." She shifted her eyes back to Lily, curiosity brimming within.

The woman had proven herself a valuable employee at the department the moment she walked through the doors. Fluent in 5 languages and with the cunning of Slytherin house to boot, the Nigerian-Welshwoman had flown through the ranks to be of equal status to where Lily and Sirius were today, despite being a few years younger. Given she was now sharing a new office with Sirius could just mean that Fudge had figured out who her friends were, but Lily knew the higher-ups had taken special notice of Yvonne's talent for the past few years regardless.

"Still," Yvonne said. "I never learned much about them. You know how much the French like me instead." She grinned flirtily, and Sirius let out a disgusted sound.

"It is quite an interesting situation, with their government." Yvonne said. "How they are so… I suppose progressive could be the word. Muggleborn-positive? Anti-pureblood, even?"

"They're not all that great." Sirius, said, head resting on the back on his chair. "And I say that as a muggleborn-positive, anti-pureblood kind of bloke."

"Their government wasn't always that way." Lily reminded the other woman as the room grew darker, a cloud coming over the enchanted window of the office. Lily absently wondered whether Vinny from the weather department was in one of those moods again, as she watched the big green hail cloud approach the fake London outside the window.

"The big rebellious overthrow they had... I presume that is what you are talking about?" Yvonne said, grabbing a box of books next to her desk and beginning to fill the bookcase against the wall by hand. She kept an eye on Lily as she went, hinting at her interest in Lily's insight.

"Yes." Lily said. "After Grindelwald was captured, the Italian muggleborn and half-blood populations were so angry to find out how many pureblood politicians supported him. All it took was a few organised militias and the entire government collapsed. Homes and offices ransacked, members of ancient families executed on the streets…"

"You know, some days I feel like I wouldn't be entirely opposed to some of that here." Sirius chimed in darkly. Lily gave him a cross look, and he averted his gaze back down to his desk with a pout.

Yvonne creased her brows in thought. "And let me guess, _our_ pureblood overlords did not much like the fact that their cousins were being murdered."

"The Prophet, as well as a dozen other newspapers in Britain were all owned by the same people." Lily said. "I guess not many people know that, even today. The media had us all thinking that the new Italian government was made up of some scary, illegitimate usurpers that murder little pureblood children. The Italians, on the other hand, either pity or hate us for not being enough like them."

Yvonne vanished the now empty box in her hands as she pushed the final book into the end of the shelf. "Italians being child murders. I have heard of that one." She said.

"You'd have to live under a rock to not have heard of it." Sirius sniffled, shuffling to his feet and fetching another box of books on the floor to help her.

"The Medici heirs, yes." Lily nodded. She remembered hearing about it a few years after starting Hogwarts. That during the Italian revolution, an extremist militia of muggleborn witches and wizards had broken into the Medici ancestral home and murdered the entire family and staff, including even a three year old girl and six year old boy, the family's only heirs. Overnight, one of the most historically important and culturally celebrated pureblood families in the world had become extinct. Lily wondered sometimes about just how much such events decades ago could have helped in You-Know-Who's rise to power. The fear tactics he could have used to justify anything to the British pureblood population based upon the actions of a few foreign muggleborns.

"It was a genius idea for the Lestranges to hide there." Yvonne said softly, as if to herself.

"How so?" Sirius blurted out. "The country _hates_ them. They were lucky they weren't probably killed by vigilantes!"

"They hid away there for ten years, nobody the wiser until now." Yvonne said as she sat back down upon her chair, grabbing a stray piece of parchment and enclosing it into one of her workbooks. The stormy scene in the window had properly shown itself by now, hail the size of golfballs falling dramatically down onto the London street below.

"They went to a country nobody would ever imagine they could be in. A place where British aurors could not search for them without creating a huge international incident. And a place that, if they were caught, they knew would place them in a prison with far better conditions than Azkaban." The woman finished.

"Well we'll have to see about that, won't we Evie?" Sirius waggled his eyebrows.

You could think, given his eagerness, that he wasn't entertaining the idea of putting his own cousin and her husband in a jail designed specifically to cause fear and despair. Lily thought back to how he had looked just a few days ago in muggle London, now feeling worried that perhaps he wasn't doing as well as he tried to appear.

Sirius went back to tapping loudly on his desk with a quill, hitting it so hard that Lily was surprised the thing didn't break under the pressure. _Definitely… strange for him… stranger than normal…_

A sharp tapping noise came from the door. Lily stood up straight and took a few steps towards it, opening it slowly. Outside stood a very nervous looking Jones, staring wide eyed at Lily.

"Some-someone came in asking about you, Potter." She uttered, head darting back to stare down the hall.

"They need me right now?" Lily asked, glancing back at her two confused friends. Yvonne took a sip of some tea on her desk, and Sirius only shrugged.

"Yes." Jones said before disappearing back down the hall, and Lily steadied herself for whatever other curveball was about to come her way.

"Good luck, dear." Yvonne only said as Lily said her goodbyes.

"If it's Italians, remind them that _we_ exist too." Sirius shouted behind her retreating back. "We're a team on this!"

"Shush, Sirius." Yvonne's voice was the last thing Lily heard before the door shut behind her. Advancing down the hallway, she knew immediately why Jones had been so nervous. Half the office looked disturbed, staff milling about at their desks sneaking glances at the newcomer with varying levels of tact.

Narcissa Malfoy stood, regal and pompous as ever, in the middle of the room. Spotting Lily, she glided towards her, an uncharacteristically blank look on her face. Lily had never seen the woman look at her without at least some level of disdain. That was, until that odd moment at Madam Malkin's.

"Can we speak in private, Ms Potter?" Malfoy asked.

"Of course, Mrs Malfoy." Lily said, gesturing to the hallway. "In my office?" The pureblood woman gave a stiff nod and followed Lily's lead as she made her way back to the new office.

For some reason, Lily felt as if the stakes were higher now in this room than they had been the last time she was there. She sat down at her chair, looking up at the other woman as she took a seat opposite her.

"As you know," Malfoy said, looking Lily straight in the eyes, unnerving her a little somehow despite her experience with more formidable people. "I am in the process of… talks with the Italian Ministry of Magic."

"As am I." Lily said, wondering which direction this would go.

_Will she threaten me? Attempt to bribe me? _She thought. Until now, Narcissa Malfoy would've thought herself and her son to be the sole heirs to the Black family fortune. Bellatrix was a fugitive, and Andromeda and Sirius were both long-since disowned. A new child in the mix would have sent the greedy woman reeling. _So naturally, she immediately goes to someone she believes can help her gain control of the Lestrange boy faster._

Lily suddenly realised the position the Malfoy woman must be in. A new Black heir emerges, likely abused by her sister, in the hands of a progressive foreign government that despised her. A government that perhaps had _saved _him, depending on his mindset. Every day that went by was another day someone could be telling him all the terrible things about the Malfoys that they had effectively swept under the rug in Britain. Things that could turn him against her. Lily felt the beginnings of a smirk as she arrived at this conclusion, right hand going to support her chin on the desk.

A strange expression crossed the other woman's face, perhaps wondering what conclusions the redhead had just come to.

"I have a request for you. It will take only an afternoon. Tomorrow." Malfoy said.

"And what is that?" Lily asked, eyes narrowing slightly.

"To take an international portkey with me. To the Italian Ministry."

The cogs in Lily's head turned at a rapid pace, considering all the possible reasons the woman could have to make such a request.

"Stop your theorising, Potter." Malfoy sneered, face gaining its trademark expression back. "I do not wish for you to do any favours for me, not yet. You must see for yourself. That is all I will say."

The woman stood abruptly, readjusting her coat. Lily coked her head to the side as she watched her.

"The atrium. Three o'clock on the twenty-eighth of this month." Malfoy said before turning to leave. Lily bit her lip in thought before the woman turned to face her.

"You would've made a good Slytherin, Lily Potter." The pureblood only said before departing.

* * *

Italian words used in this chapter:

Italia- Italy

Mago oscuro - dark wizard

Oh man, this chapter was supposed to come out way sooner, but my life really got in the way. Apologies for the wait. This chapter has a pretty big lore dump in it, so any feedback would be awesome. I still regard myself as a total beginner at this. This is the first fanfic I've ever written (other than some stuff when I was like 10-14, but I don't really count those monstrosities).


	9. Chapter 9

The villa's gardens were neatly manicured, lush hedges and soft grasses meeting in the centre where a small fountain sat, surrounded by friendly flowers. Jets of cool water splashed up towards the sky, before surrendering themselves back down again into the pool of liquid below. A boy watched as the water moved about, a distant red sunset in the clouds making the orange tiles on the villa roof stand out and make the place seem almost otherworldly. Only the sounds of the water and a distant bird chirping broke the silence before a soft _pop_ sounded a few feet away from him.

"Master Altair, sir." A tiny figure next to him croaked. The boy flinched, jumping a foot away from the creature as he stared at it, turning a bit bug-eyed in his surprise. A little person with long ears and gangly little limbs stood before him in the garden, dressed in a tiny dark blue thing that reminded Altair more of a pillowcase than any item of proper clothing. "Mistress Carla said that Master Altair didn't have any lunch today!" The creature tugged on its ears nervously, big eyes filling with concern.

"Should Peeky give Master Altair some food? Afternoon tea? Or some fruits Mistress Carla likes?"

Altair gaped at the creature, not quite knowing how to react to its sudden presence in his late afternoon wander.

"W-What are you?" He only gasped, looking back up at the villa nervously to see whether he could spot the only other occupant of it through any of its windows. Alas, he could not.

The little person gasped, eyes suddenly brimming with tears. Altair stood frozen in front of the little fountain, worry and guilt filling him at the reaction. "Wait, don't cry! I'm sorry!" He started, but the creature had already stuttered a quick apology of its own and disapparated away. Altair held a hand out to where it had been, grimacing to himself.

"Peeky takes things pretty personally." He heard another voice come from his other side. A woman appeared next to him almost as quickly as the creature had, emerging out next to one of the garden's tall hedge fences. Altair wondered how long she had been there. She had black hair, greying as she approached her middle age, with a long muggle dress on that covered most of her body despite the last vestiges of a warm summer clinging onto the land.

"You should try to be more sensitive to her feelings." She said, quirking a smile up towards Altair.

"I didn't mean to..." Altair only stuttered back to the woman, turning his gaze back to the fountain and the sunset above. "I've never seen one of those before." He said, thinking about the creature's bizarre appearance. "What… what was she?"

"A house elf." Carla said. "She's a funny one, too. Likes to collect all my coke cans and build things out of them when she runs out of chores."

"So she... works for you?" Altair asked, glancing down to his feet in thought and inspecting one of the roses growing next to the fountain. It was pretty. As big as the palm of his hand, and a strong, dominating red.

"Yes. My family have owned her since before I was born."

With that sentence, Altair's head shot up, shocked.

"Owned?" He repeated, face scrunching up in confusion. "Like… like a servant… or?" The woman's face grew tense, like Altair wasn't the first person to say something like that in response.

"She likes working for me." She said, a hint of defensiveness arising. "When my father passed away, I asked her if she wished to be freed. She said no. All house elves enjoy working for their human masters, it's in their nature."

"Said _no?_" Altair said, slightly dumbfounded in the words of his new foster parent. "Why would she say no? There are _more_ creatures like… like her? That work for wizards?" The boy fired off question after question, trying to grapple with the existence of an entire species of little people like the one that had stood before him.

"Is she like a...a…" The boy racked his brain to think of what it was he meant to say. Two languages danced in his head before the word finally came to him.

"A _schiavo?_"

Carla's head flinched back as she stared down at him. She seemed to not be quite sure on what to say as a response. Eventually she sighed, crossing her arms to her chest.

"Not many other_ ragazzi _your age would say such a thing." She said thoughtfully. Altair slid an anxious foot back and forth on the pavement at his feet at her words. The sound of a growing wind slowly replaced the birds as they flew further away from the villa and back towards their homes in the trees. The sky's red hues began to disappear behind thick cloud, warm heat creeping away bit by bit as a white mist approached.

"You better get inside soon." Carla said. "The _televisione_ said rain was coming."

The boy turned his head up from his shoes to look at her as she spoke. As he lifted his gaze up, her face became blurry in his vision. Blinking rapidly for a few seconds, Altair shook his head from side to side confusedly. The fountain and the surrounding scenery looked fuzzy as well as he whipped his gaze towards them, wondering what it was that had suddenly come over him. It was if he was looking at the world through a thick, blurry glass.

Within moments however, his vision cleared up as quickly as it had grown so bizarrely affected, the clean, crisp garden coming back into view once more.

"Are you okay?" Carla asked, noticing his odd behaviour.

"Yes." Altair said sharply. "I'm fine."

The two returned inside the villa soon after, leaving the garden alone to face the rain. Altair had still not even properly explored his new home, opting instead to visit the gardens shortly after Carla had porkeyed with him out of the Ministry. He had supposed the Malfoy woman, his _aunt_, had chosen Carla for him to stay with. The lawyer man had said that they would put him with a new foster that was of higher 'status', but Altair hadn't realised what that really meant until he had taken his first glimpse of the remote and towering Italian villa that Carla lived in, all alone.

She seemed nice enough, though. She was already less overbearing than Dario was. Altair couldn't quite believe his luck. He also very much liked the gardens, and they had the cleanest air he thought he had ever breathed.

He marched through the back doors of the villa that led to the garden, watching as Carla walked straight to the sitting room and placed herself in an armchair, next to where a teapot had already been put down on a little side table. Maybe that little Peeky person had even put it there.

Trying to get the house elf out of his mind for the moment, Altair sank down into the couch next to the woman's chair. He spotted a television on a cabinet out of the corner of his eye. He hadn't even noticed it when he had entered the room for the first time, being as eager as he was to go outside after the stifling visit to the Ministry and day after day of careful watch in Dario's tiny apartment. There was some game show playing on it, with a few men running through a comical obstacle course across the shiny screen. A tiny, soft giggling noise erupted nearby, and Altair had to look around the room for several seconds before he discovered the person that had produced it. A house elf, a different from the one in the garden, was sitting on the floor in a corner. They looked to be sipping tea with a tiny tea set of their own as they stared at the television, utterly enraptured.

"I didn't know wizards had TVs." Altair remarked to Carla. The unit stuck out in the room, with the rest of the furniture all looking like out of a history book about the lives of the wealthy in decades past. The villa's furnishings and trims looked almost royal, all the part of some stuck-up rich person's family home.

"I'm not a wizard." Carla said to Altair, giving him another of her small smiles and motioning to one of the two teacups on the table in front of them. She picked one up herself, after stirring in a single sugar cube. At Altair's quizzical look, she spoke again.

"I'm a squib. It means it means I was born with magical genes, but I am not capable of performing magic. We're often discovered to be squibs after living for several years with no displays of accidental magic. People like me, we can see magical creatures like house elves, be capable of having ownership of them, even. We are also immune to muggle-repelling charms, and the like. We just don't have any magic of our own." She was without any touch of negative emotion on her face as she leaned back on her chair after her explanation, bringing her teacup close to her lips to softly blow.

"That's… that's sad…" Altair said, picturing how warm and whole he felt the moment he held the wand in his parents' locked bedroom. It felt like coming home, if there was one for him. He couldn't picture something that felt so innate to him just not being there. He thought about how it would feel to be someone like Carla, living in a magical world and only being able to watch others participate in it.

"Why so?" Carla asked.

Altair took a moment to think before he said his next words. "You grew up thinking you were something, only to find out you never were it after all. Weren't you… sad? When you found out?"

Carla sipped her tea, mulling over his words for a time before she answered.

"Not really. I was lucky. My father was also a squib, and my mother was a muggle. Squibs are thought to have genes in our bodies that make our descendants more likely to become wizards further down the line, but between himself and a muggle mother, they didn't hold out much belief for a magical child." Altair nodded, understanding. That wouldn't have been so bad, then. He was still glad he wasn't a squib, though. He wondered how his parents would have reacted if he had been. What would they have done with a son that couldn't use magic?

_Maybe they would've preferred me that way._ He thought to himself. Altair and Carla fell into a short, comfortable silence as the television screen played in the background. Carla had passed the other teacup into Altair's hands before something she had said suddenly sprang up in his mind.

"What are genes?" He asked, staring expectantly at her.

Carla's lips quirked as she cut her gaze off from the television. She seemed almost excited to answer. "I guess you could understand them as things we inherit from our parents, which work together to determine what we're like as we're conceived." She said.

"For example, if both of your parents have brown hair, you are much more likely to have brown hair than if both of your parents were blondes, though it's a little more complicated than that. Genes determine everything, from our gender, to our eye colour, skin colour, facial features, even sometimes the foods we will and won't like." Altair furrowed his brows as he considered her words.

"And… _genes _say whether or not you're a wizard?" Altair thought about his friend Ezio, somewhere in Naples and completely unaware of what had happened to Giacomo Moretti.

Carla adopted a thoughtful expression. "Well, there hasn't been much research into magical genes, to be fair. Even Italian wizards clutch their pearls at the thought of studying them. People have had beliefs and traditions about where we come from that have held up for centuries. Even entertaining the possibility that these traditional ideas could be false can be terrifying to some. It doesn't help that genetics is primarily a muggle study." She took her next sip of the tea, and Altair followed suit. The liquid had a bitter tang, and he wanted to ask her for some sugar, but he wanted her to continue more so.

"Some research _has_ actually been done about the possibility of muggleborns all being descendants of disowned squibs, but I guess we won't know for several more generations whether it's true." Carla continued. "Most squibs used to be disowned and their names scrubbed clean off family records. At least our ministry let my father keep the family estate, many other ministries try their best to strip squibs of their family inheritances."

The silence that befell them that time was a thoughtful one, both humans in the room mulling over Carla's words. The boy suddenly thought again about if he had been born a squib, and if his parents would have been one of those people to remove him from a family tree. They seemed the type. Maybe they would have even left him somewhere, on the steps of a muggle police station or something. For a moment, he almost preferred the idea.

A soft _pop_ broke through the room, now familiar enough to Altair that he didn't flinch once more at the sight of the person who created it. "Oh, Peeky is happy to see Master Altair enjoying his tea! Would Mister Altair like some biscuits?"

Peeky the house elf had her hands clasped at her sides, looking with her large, round eyes up hopefully at him from across the sitting room.

"Sure." He said immediately, still feeling guilty at how the creature had burst into tears minutes earlier. The elf had seemingly perked up significantly in the very small period of time, gasping and cheering before disappearing again. Her reaction made the second house elf on the floor giggle as it sipped on its only tiny teacup.

"I've assigned Peeky to you, she'll sort out meals and clean your room for you." Carla said.

"I've also given her permission to go to the _Vicolo Delle Streghe _if you want her to pick some things up for you. With my prior approval, of course. But you have all the free time to hang out in the villa, or the gardens. I work long hours, so I hope you find enough to occupy yourself during your time here."

Altair didn't respond to her words, watching the house elf on the floor sip away at its own tea, a niggling feeling building up at the back of his mind. The creatures made him uncomfortable. There was just something about their eagerness to please him that put him on edge. He had never had anyone so determined to deliver him his every want the way Carla had just said. He was bored beyond belief at that cottage in Tuscany, but at least he could control what he did inside of it. His sleep schedule. The clothes he wore. His eating habits (well, that one was subject to an ever anxiously depleting cupboard of rations, but at least he was _responsible). _The concept of having someone follow him around all day to do every little thing for him was… not very favourable.

The fact of the matter was he was a boy that had fended for himself for too long. The sudden new set of restrictions placed upon him the moment he was first portkeyed to the Ministry of Magic felt impossible to be okay with.

Peeky appeared again with a tray of biscuits Altair didn't recognise the type of, the little elf placing them on the table eagerly. Altair took one and nibbled on the end of it. The house elf grinned in delight and disapparated again, hopefully permanently for the time being. Carla turned her attention back to the television as Altair considered saying what was on his mind.

"You don't suppose I can attend _Luponero_ when the school year starts? I'm old enough to go, now." He said. Carla only sighed.

"The Ministryhas decided that because you are likely to end up in the custody of your aunt in several months, it would be best for you to remain out of formal schooling. They have given me your wand, but I will be keeping it in my own private quarters until you have proven you can be trusted with it."

"_My wand?" _Altair gasped.

_He gripped the wand tightly in one hand, feeling a sudden rush of elation and warmth as it suddenly shot out a burst of red and gold sparks._

Shaking his head back to the present, he spoke again. "Can I at least practice during the day? It's not fair that I can't have it! Please, just for a little bit? I'll be careful!"

Carla's face grew sterner as she appraised him. "I've only got it for safekeeping, Altair. I'm sure your aunt will let you have your wand when everything at the ministry processes. Peeky will be making sure you keep out of trouble, and it would be best for you to follow my rules while you are here."

She listed off a set of rules without saying anything more about the wand. No going outside after dark. No leaving the villa beyond the garden. No talking back to or being rude to Carla or any of the elves. No trying to ask Peeky to get you anything other than some books and small knick knacks from _Vicolo Delle Streghe._

_It's always just him alone with some damn books, isn't it?_

"So I can't leave? I'm stuck here?" Altair asked desperately, the tea in his hands growing colder by the minute.

"The Ministry-"

A rush of anger and panic flooded him in the blink of an eye. Without hesitation, he slammed the teacup onto the coffee table in front of him before rounding on the woman. "No! Stop saying 'the Ministry!' Why can't I just be left alone? Why can't I have my wand? _Now?!"_

"You are a _child_. You cannot be left on your own, and you cannot have your wand in this house." Carla said sharply, kindness lost on her face at his words.

"_I've always been on my own!_ And I'm fine! I want to be _alone! _I don't want this, why do I have to be like a prisoner-_"_

"It's clear you're upset about this arrangement." Carla cut him off, standing up from her chair. Altair's breaths grew quicker as she spoke, despite her tone lacking any real edge.

"I'll be retiring to my quarters. If you're still in a similar mood tomorrow, I have no qualms about floo calling the Child Protection Department to bring your appointment with the mind healer up by a few days. This must be a very difficult time for someone as young and scared as you are."

"I'm not fucking scared! I'm annoyed!" Altair's heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest, fingers twitching with a need that felt it was bubbling over inside him, long overdue. The need to _get out._

He ran for the outside door, pushing it open haphazardly and escaping out onto the entrance to the villa's garden. The boy felt wet globs of rain hit his head and seep quickly into his clothes as the storm clouds above him roared their displeasure. He escaped down the large hedges of the gardens over the grass, stopping at the foot of the small fountain. Unwillingly, Altair's legs gave out under him until he lay pressed against the side of it, body lying at an awkward angle but mind too hazy to notice.

He felt suffocated. Like he was in the middle of apparating, but there was no real reason for him to feel as though he was being pressed from all sides. He gasped for air, but it felt like his lungs were incapable of the feat.

_I'm dying_, he thought. _I must be dying._

Minutes felt like an eternity. Altair was going to be consumed by the fear in his gut, the fear he had long since denied. Fear that ran so deep, he couldn't remember how it had felt before he had become so thoroughly entangled with it. _He was going to die._ The darkness was choking him. Coming in from all sides...

A little hand touched his cheek. His eyes sprang open, the boy unaware that he had closed them. Peeky stood in front of him, fingers wet with the tears she had wiped off his cheek, or perhaps only more of the pelting rain that crashed down around them.

"Please don't be sad, Master Altair!" Peeky cried, her own eyes filled with tears of her own. "Peeky doesn't want her Master to be sad! Peeky is sorry!"

Altair pushed through the urge to continue hyperventilating, making a conscious effort to take in one large breath despite the edges of his vision going dark only seconds before. Peeky looked properly devastated by his condition. Now aware of his uncomfortable slumping, he sat up properly, wildly wiping his wet face.

"It's okay, Peeky." He said. "I'm fine."

Peeky's face perked up, a hesitant smile on her face that Altair forced himself to match.

"Okay, Master Altair!" She chirped. Altair's chest didn't hurt as much anymore, the fear that had come over him so suddenly slowly ebbing away. It left a hollow, empty sort of hurt in its wake, one that Altair ignored as he tried to smile more convincingly for the house elf.

"I'm okay, Peeky." He repeated. "Really."

Maybe he could get used to the house elf. It seemed kind. And maybe, if he kept saying he was fine, he would be.

* * *

Italian words used in this chapter:

Schiavo – slave

Ragazzi – boys

Televisione – television

Vicolo Delle Streghe - Witches' Alley (what I'd imagine to be the Italian equivalent to Diagon Alley, a more innocent version of Quartiere Mezzanotte)

Luponero (Scuola di Eccellenza Magica) - Luponero School of Magical Excellence. Luponero is just lupo + nero, which means "black wolf". Wolves are Italy's national animal, so I thought it was fitting. Beauxbatons just means beautiful sticks so I figured I'd extend on the name combo theme.


	10. Chapter 10

_September 1, 1991_

A dark cloud rose from the bright red locomotor, with dozens of people sprawled about next to it on the station platform, scurrying inside after last-minute hugs or waving at loved ones from afar. It was here that stood a young boy with bright, flushed cheeks, red hair and an easy smile, crammed into the Hogwarts Express and poking a head out of one of its windows. He stuck a hand out to wave at his mother, who smiled back in turn to raise a hand at him as the train began to move. Next to her stood an attractive young man, dressed all in black and with dark, messy hair. To a stranger, the pair waving could have appeared to be just another couple on the platform, sending their child off to a year at Hogwarts. But many recognised Lily Potter and Sirius Black, more discerning readers of the _Daily Prophet_ even knowing them for the years of dating rumours hidden behind their public friendship.

"C'mon, Rob! Before everywhere gets too full!" A tall blond boy yelled out to his friend, who turned his eyes away from the crowded platform as it shrank further and further away. He tailed the excited boy through the tight throngs of other students that clogged the train's narrow hallway, through a few carriages until they found an empty compartment. The two friends sat down opposite one other on the plush seats.

"I still can't believe we're _finally_ going to Hogwarts." Anthony Goldstein said, clasping his hands together. "It feels like forever ago since my sister's first year. Now we'll finally see where we'll be sorted!"

"Yeah." Robert said, smiling at his friend a little nervously. "Sorting. I'll be fun."

Anthony stilled slightly at the other boy's tone, frowning slightly. "Are you nervous? I guess I am, too. But my parents said that it doesn't matter where I'll be sorted. How do you reckon they sort them, anyway? I heard two older boys on the platform say that we might have to…" the boy stopped to gulp, "...fight a troll!"

"My mum said it wasn't scary." Robert said hesitantly. "That it was really easy. But she didn't say how. I'm just worried… what if I don't make Gryffindor?"

Anthony gave Robert a slightly exasperated expression, leaning back against the seat and running though his short hair with a frown.

"You're really worried about that, aren't you?" He said. "But I think you're super brave. Remember that time all those gnomes tried to bully Mrs Mittens, but you were the only one that tried to fight them?"

Robert grimaced, a picture of the ugly, unpleasant little magical creatures in his friend's garden springing to mind from the event. The poor cat was quite beside herself. "Yeah, I guess. But I don't know if that would be enough to make somebody a Gryffindor. My Uncle Sirius said Gryffindor is all about bravery, and courage. Albus Dumbledore was in Gryffindor. I wanna be someone like that. I don't wanna end up in… end up in…" The boy trailed off.

"Slytherin?" Anthony drawled, a knowing look in his eye. At Anthony's wide, fearful eyes, he let out a laugh. "Slytherin isn't that bad! One of my uncles was in Slytherin, and he's really nice. He always lets me stay up as late as I want whenever we go to his house. Plus, Merlin was in Slytherin, too. And everybody loves Merlin."

"Everybody loves Merlin." Robert repeated, nodding to himself. He glanced back out towards the train hallway. Most of the students had retreated into their own compartments by now, only occasional strays passing by their compartment window as they made their way down the train carriages.

"My mum wants me to be in Gryffindor." Robert uttered. "She didn't say it this morning, but I know she wanted me to be in it. Like her, and Dad and Uncle Sirius."

Anthony didn't say anything in return, staying quiet with a pensive look on his face. For a while, only the sounds of the locomotor travelling down the tracks filled the air.

"I think Mum will really miss me." Robert said, sighing and looking out of the window. The suburbs had given way to lush English countryside, inching closer and closer further north of the British Isles towards their eventual destination.

"You think?" Anthony asked.

"Well, she's been acting weird this past few days. Not really excited about me going to Hogwarts I guess." Robert said. "Being kind of… quiet. And sad too, I suppose." Robert frowned.

"Oh. I guess that's not that weird. My mum got all teary and embarrassing when I was on the platform before you came." Anthony responded. "You should've seen how much she cried when Sarah went to Hogwarts for the first time."

Robert kept frowning, folding his arms.

"Hey, don't worry." Anthony said, reaching down between them to gently hit Robert's leg. "She'll be fine. Besides, I can't wait to see my sister's face if I get sorted anywhere other than Ravenclaw. Imagine it!" The boy laughed, causing Robert's lips to upturn despite himself.

"You're totally a Ravenclaw." Robert chuckled. "Goldsteins are always Ravenclaws."

Anthony twisted his face into an exaggerated expression of thought, bringing a finger to brush along his chin. "Yeah, you're probably right about that. Still would be funny, though. But I want to be in Ravenclaw anyway, so I hope I get in."

Suddenly, the door opened with a loud bang_._ On the other side was a boy, tall and with bright red hair. Robert didn't recognise him, and the two stared at the intruder for a few moments before he finally spoke, red faced.

"C-Can I sit here? Everywhere else is full?" The stranger stuttered.

"Sure." Robert said immediately, shuffling down his compartment seat to make room for him. Anthony shot the boy a small, reassuring smile as he sat down, doubtlessly pitying the lonely boy.

"I'm Ron, by the way." The boy said after a moment of awkward silence. "Ron Weasley. Are you guys first years, too?"

The pair nodded and introduced themselves.

"Potter? Robert Potter?" Ron gasped, taking in every detail of Robert's face in shock. "You're Lily Potter's kid?"

"Yes." Robert deadpanned. "That's me." The other redhead paused at Robert's expression, seemingly catching onto the other boy's quick shift in demeanour.

"Sorry." Ron said, looking down. "You probably get that loads of times. My brothers are all everybody ever wants to talk about, too. _Perfect_ Percy, and Charlie the Quidditch Captain. And Fred and George…" He trailed off.

"No, it's okay." Robert said slowly. "I'm used to it."

Ron grimaced at his words. "Yeah. It sucks, eh?" He fumbled for words for a moment, scratching his face and leaving a noticeable brown splotch on the side of his nose. Robert felt too shy to point it out.

"Did she really do what… what everybody says?" Ron whispered. Robert only shrugged in response, uncomfortable.

"Hey Ron." Anthony piped up for the first time. "What house do you reckon you'll be in?"

And from then on, the boys discussed Hogwarts. There they learned that Ron was just as eager for Gryffindor as Robert, and that his brothers were the ones Anthony overheard talking about fighting trolls.

"You don't think it'll be us fighting anything?" Ron asked them as he chewed into a long snake lolly, ripping it in half with his teeth. Robert and Anthony had both spared no expense when the trolly lady came by, having no qualms about dividing the lot between the three of them when they caught a glimpse of Ron's utterly tragic sandwich.

"I hope not." Anthony responded. "Mum didn't let me practice any spells! I tried reading the textbooks, but I only got a few chapters in…"

"You read the textbooks already?" Ron gasped.

The hours passed comfortably. Before the three boys knew it, the sky outside had grown dark. They had rushed to get changed into their school robes not long before the train eased into Hogsmeade station. Emerging to crowds of other students, most old enough to have house symbols atop their robes, the three new friends made their way down the platform. At the end stood a tall man, taller than anyone the boys had ever seen.

"Firs' years this way!" The man boomed, lantern in one hand swinging as he called out. Anthony and Ron's faces were adorned with looks of shock and disbelief as they approached.

"Oh 'ello there Robert!" The man grinned as he saw him. He glanced at Anthony, and then Ron, and then back and forth between Ron and Robert several times. "For a secon' there I almost thought you was another Weasley!"

"Hello Hagrid." Robert smiled up at the great man.

"You know him?" Ron gasped, eyes widening as he took in the man's large belly and long beard.

"I met him a couple times." Robert said. "My mum's friends with him."

"_FIRS' YEARS, COME THIS WAY!"_ Hagrid shouted again, causing the trio to flinch at the unexpected volume. Before long, a group of around forty children had gathered around them, each one nervous but some trying to appear less so. Hagrid led them out of the station and towards a dock down several flights of stairs. Robert glanced confusedly at the retreating backs of the older students, all going somewhere in the opposite direction.

"You've got this, Hermione." He heard a bushy haired girl mutter to herself next to him as he descended the final staircase. "You're prepared."

"Are you okay?" He asked the girl. She flinched at his question, hair whipping around wildly to face him as they came to a stop. Anthony and Ron glanced behind them, overhearing his words.

"Yes." The girl said, looking a nervous wreck. Robert frowned.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called out, seating himself down onto a rowboat. Without any prompting, the boat began inching forward, and the man was slowly leaving the dock, and the children behind. Quickly, the first years scampered into the rest of the boats. Ron and Anthony sat in the front of the first one they could get to, Robert quickly at their heels to follow on the back. The three had all just sat down before a fourth weight unexpectedly wobbled the boat.

The girl from before had sat herself down on the empty spot next to Robert, shyly looking down away from them as the boat began to move. The three boys spoke to themselves, the girl keeping to herself as the boat rowed itself down the dark lake. Robert glanced at her a few times, not quite sure what to say to her. Had she not made any friends yet?

Before long, the little boats curved around a bend to reveal a large, magnificent castle in the distance. The four gasped, echoing the reactions of the others as they marvelled at the view.

It was at that moment that Robert truly realised just where he was. _Hogwarts._ His new home. For months he had been nervous about it, nervous about fitting into his new home and with how much his life would change. But right there and then, where he was, with the three other occupants of the boat, he felt like he would be okay. The castle's lights glimmered beautifully in the distance, seemingly welcoming him personally.

"What's your name?" Robert asked the girl, as Anthony muttered something to Ron while wildly gesticulating down to the lake below them, the other redhead gasping in what was perhaps terror in reaction to his words.

"Hermione Granger." The girl said, too distracted by the castle to look at him. Robert couldn't help but feel in a similar way as he gazed up above. His mother and uncle had talked a lot about how beautiful Hogwarts was, and he had seen it in pictures, but nothing could compare to the real thing. Any fear about Hogwarts houses slipped away as he watched the castle slowly grow closer.

A witch with a name that Robert vaguely recognised greeted them at the front entrance after they left the boats. She thanked Hagrid before leading them into the castle's massive double doors, but not before giving Robert a strange look that the boy couldn't discern the meaning of. The woman spoke to them about the Hogwarts houses and the sorting before leaving them in a room off the side of the castle's great hall.

Minutes passed, and the students grew more and more nervous as time went by, anxiously whispering to one another different speculations about how the sorting would perhaps go.

"Oh hey, Sally!" Anthony called out, waving at a girl Robert didn't know standing nearby. She had long brown pigtails and looked noticeably pale, though that could have been because of the look of sheer terror on her face.

"Anthony!" She gasped, running up to them. "Mum said you were starting this year too, but I didn't know where you were!" The girl's eyes watered, tears almost brimming down.

Anthony shrugged, grimacing guiltily. "Sorry. I was hanging with Robert. And Ron." He pointed to the boy. At Robert and Ron's questioning looks, he spoke again.

"This is Sally-Anne Perks." He said. "My third cousin. Second cousin once-removed? I don't know. Something like that." The girl, Sally-Anne, only pouted and crossed her arms. Anthony introduced Robert and Ron in turn, Hermione taking it upon herself to introduce herself to the whole group as well. It seemed the girl had attached herself to them the moment Robert had first spoken to her. Robert glanced at her, noticing that she had large front teeth, and kept brushing anxiously at her hair. She was pretty.

The group mingled for a time, exchanging ideas about how the sorting would go, as were the rest of the cohort in their own little groups. Anthony proposed the troll fighting once more, which was quickly shot down by Robert and Sally-Anne, much to the rest of the children's relief. Hermione hoped it would be a quiz or some test of theoretical ability, given that she'd already read all the textbooks. Ron had been scandalised and Anthony had muttered "Ravenclaw" to himself before Sally-Anne proposed quietly that it had to be a practical test using wands.

"But I've never practiced!" Anthony complained. "That's not fair! I bet some people here already know loads of spells!"

"Robert Potter." A voice behind Robert announced. Robert turned around to face a blond boy with cold grey eyes staring at him, two burly boys standing at either side of the obnoxious-looking boy. He recognised the boy immediately as the one from the robe shop.

"Malfoy." He said, crossing his arms defensively. The two had already gotten off on the wrong foot, and he already didn't consider the second encounter to be much better if the other boy's sour look was anything to go by.

"Not surprising that you've already acquainted yourself with the worst Wizarding society has to offer." The boy sneered, looking Ron up and down as he spoke. Ron frowned angrily but said nothing, clenching his fists by his side and tensing his jaw. Robert grew incensed. _Why does this boy think he can be so mean to people he doesn't even know?_

"Funny you would say something like that. What was it that the _Daily Prophet_ had to say about your dad the last time he was important enough to get a mention?" Robert clapped back. The words struck a nerve, Malfoy's eyes widening as he snarled.

"You don't know anything about my father!" He shouted, gaining the attention of the other students. The room quietened, all captivated by the sudden confrontation at hand.

"Look at you!" Malfoy went on, face carrying a more severe glare than earlier. "Red hair, looking like you never learned how to bathe. I guess I shouldn't be surprised you're hanging out with Weasleys. After all, one would think he," he stopped to point firmly at Ron, "was your brother."

The boy paused again for effect, face beginning to entertain a wondering expression. The children around him tensed, holding their breath.

"Oh wait, that's right. Your real one wasn't smart enough to live, wasn't he?" Malfoy said, features twitching into a wretched smile.

Gasps sounded from a few different directions, and Robert wanted nothing more than to march the few steps it would take towards the boy to punch him in the face. He was only stopped by a hand at his side quickly surrounding his. Turning his face, he saw Anthony looking quietly at him, a worried expression on his face. Before anything else could be said, a few students on the other side of the room let out loose screams. The group was distracted enough by the sudden influx of curious, yet oblivious ghosts welcoming them to the castle until Professor McGonagall returned.

Robert, still incensed, followed his friends as the cohort was led into the great hall. Together all the first years stared up at the old hat sitting atop a stool in front of the whole school nervously, until the hat opened its brim and began to sing.

After, Abbott, Hannah's name was announced first. McGonagall placed the hat upon the girl's head, and she was loudly proclaimed a Hufflepuff soon after. From there, the sorting went by too quick for Robert, names being called out one after the other until the alphabetical order landed on 'G'.

Anthony walked forward to sit on the stool. With the taller boy stepping up, Robert could see the hat a little more clearly. It looked an old, frayed thing. He had never seen magic like it before. The hat was silent for several seconds after it was placed on Anthony's head. Robert could see the boy's fingers going white from where they pressed against the sides of the stool, eyes obscured by the hat's brim.

"Ravenclaw!" The hat announced to the hall, where a polite clapping sounded, accented by a few more enthusiastic noises from the students with a blue symbol etched into their uniforms. McGonagall promptly lifted the hat up from Anthony's head, to reveal an excited grin and sparkling eyes as he and Robert briefly exchanged happy looks. The boy then stepped off the stool to head to his new house table, other students clapping him on the back as he sat down. One of the boys that had stood next to Malfoy went up next, quickly being sent off to Slytherin.

"Granger, Hermione." McGonagall said next. The girl next to Robert muttered something unintelligible to herself quietly before marching forward and replacing the boy from before. The silence stretched on longer than it did for Anthony.

_Ravenclaws were all about books and cleverness, weren't they? And also for having the more… weird students…_ Robert thought to himself. He couldn't imagine the strange girl going anywhere else. The seconds continued ticking by, and Robert considered whispering to Ron before the hat finally made up its mind.

"Gryffindor!"

Hermione Granger looked relieved and triumphant as she stepped down, marching to the red and gold table like she had claimed some sort of victory. Robert watched her as she went, confused. He hadn't expected that.

More names flew by. Greengrass, Daphne went into Slytherin. Jones, Megan and Hopkins, Wayne both went to Hufflepuff. Li, Sue to Ravenclaw. Malfoy was called after a Macmillan and pushed his way through the crowd with his nose turned up towards the seat. The hat took barely a second on him, shouting Slytherin as if it had been burned by the hair on his head. Robert tensed as the pale boy locked eyes with him for a moment, a faint, unpleasant emotion churning in his gut. He really _didn't like _him.

Before Robert knew it, McGonagall began announcing names that began with 'P'. Anxiety filled his body, hands fumbling at his sides by the time his name had finally been called.

The great hall grew still as he took his first step forward. A few stray whispers caught Robert's ears, but he ignored them, instead marching up to the stool. In front of him sat Albus Dumbledore, looking directly at him. He didn't dare meet the Headmaster's eye, much too nervous about the task at hand as he sat down.

"Hello there, Mister Potter." A voice in his head, alien to him, spoke suddenly. Robert did all he could to suppress a flinch as the large hat properly obscured his vision.

_What was…_

"What was that, you wonder?" The voice chucked to itself. Robert felt beyond unnerved.

"Not to worry, Mister Potter." The voice, the _hat_, continued. "Just looking at the most important bits of you. I see a great deal of loyalty, and a desire to help people that others may overlook, do I not? Hufflepuff would be a house proud to have you."

"_Gryffindor!"_ He thought furiously to himself. _"But I want Gryffindor!"_

"Gryffindor?" The hat exclaimed, tutting. "Yes… yes… with a great deal of loyalty also comes a great deal of courage, wouldn't you say? With you, one would say foolishness, almost?"

"_Please, I just want to be in Gryffindor."_ Robert screwed his eyes shut in concentration, the hat's insult barely registering.

"You seem to have your heart quite set on it." The hat said. _Yes._ Robert thought. Gryffindor was the house he wanted to be in. Like his mum and Uncle Sirius. Like Harry would have been, he knew it. He had to make them all proud. The hat took a few long, suffering moments before calling out to the waiting crowd, a table erupting in cheers and applause at the word.

"Gryffindor!"

* * *

_August 28, 1991_

Lily had seen pictures of the Italian ministry in photos, and despite herself wished she had gotten the chance to see the atrium as she felt her feet meet solid ground in a portkey room. Narcissa Malfoy landed by her side in the small, empty space, pocketing the portkey and turning to face her.

"We are in one of the smaller wings of the Italian Ministry of Magic." She said stiffly. "One that hosts the Child Protection Department."

Surprised, Lily turned her head to meet the other woman's gaze. "We aren't headed to Foreign Affairs, or International Magical Cooperation?" She asked her.

Malfoy simply shook her head, strutting to the room's exit. Lily followed suit, and soon the pair were walking alone down a long hallway. A few doors passed by revealing empty offices and storage closets before Malfoy stopped at a door inscribed with a department title. She paused before it, going still.

"The Italian wizarding world..." She began, ever-present look of faint distaste on her face glowing in the light. "Has always been quite… hesitant to trust the Malfoy family."

Lily regarded her words. What direction was this woman taking this?

"Yes." Lily responded slowly. "And your nephew…" the Malfoy woman's bottom lip twitched. "...I take it it will be a while until he can come home?"

"It's obvious that he is what we're here for." Malfoy said, turning to regard Lily with an indiscernible look. "But it's not what you think." The woman sharply turned the door handle, pushing it in and disappearing inside the next room. Lily followed quickly at her heels, intrigued.

They had walked into a kind of waiting room. The place was empty aside from an elderly receptionist who lifted her head up to look at them. Narcissa Malfoy did not even spare her a glance, marching off into a hallway to her left. Lily felt the set of eyes follow her as she trailed behind.

"If you haven't brought me here in an attempt to hasten the custody transfer process, then what reason do you have to do so?" Lily said as Malfoy stopped at another door, this one appearing to be some sort of meeting room or office by the looks of it.

"The boy that was found in my sister and her husband's custody is inside this room." She said, grey eyes boring into Lily's green in a way that made the redhead feel a little unsettled.

"The Italian wizarding population reveres you for being a powerful muggleborn witch that defeated the Dark Lord." Lily had to take a moment to register the woman's words. That was probably the closest someone from the great and mighty _pureblood_ House of Black would ever come to complimenting a muggleborn.

Sirius didn't count.

"Lucius wishes for our family to humbly extend a public hand of friendship to you and the House of Potter. Both for your achievements in the Ministry in the last decade and for the vanquishing of the Dark Lord."

Lily's eyes narrowed. "And why would I ever do such a thing?"

Public hands of friendship were a big deal in the wizarding world, a fact that she had only learned more so when she began working for the Ministry. A show of trust from her, a muggleborn that was perceived to have done so much good, to a family that was rumoured to have served You-Know-Who…

It would certainly destroy her reputation. Or elevate theirs, in the eyes of Italians.

"Why does what the Italian public think matter so much to you?" Lily said, crossing her arms. "What are you playing at?"

"All in due time, Mrs Potter." Malfoy said, a smirk playing on the edges of her lips. "We will give you some time to think about it, of course. Public pledges are a big affair."

"_What makes you think I would ever say yes?"_ Lily's words rebounded off the back of the Malfoy matriarch as she pushed open the final door to reveal the occupant inside.

Inside was a boy, no more than ten or eleven. He had scrappy, long black hair that sat like a bird's nest on his head. A youthful face, slightly thinner than should be for his age, with curious eyes sitting below the dark locks, watching her from a chair behind a desk. Instantly, all words died in Lily's throat as she felt as though all the wind had been knocked out of her.

In her mind's eye, she saw clear as day the moment an old, tattered hat shouted _"Gryffindor!"_ and a boy jumped up off a stool to rush to a table decked in red. That same nose, that same jaw, those same almond-shaped eyes…

The boy stared, unblinkingly, silently. Lily felt as if she was being judged, or perhaps scrutinised in the very same way she was now staring at the boy in turn. Only his eyes were different from what she remembered. The very first time she had spotted another boy that had looked much like him, he had hazel eyes, framed with glasses. But this boy was different. He continued to stare, eyes a piercing green. And she stared back, with her own eyes an identical shade.


	11. Chapter 11

The office was quiet when Lily entered, the only noise the soft swirls of Albus' spinning instruments peppered all over the room. The three occupants already sat at the headmaster's desk, Yvonne arising from her own chair and gently pushing Lily down upon it when she approached.

"Oh Morgana, Lily. Whatever has happened? You look so pale." She remarked, a gentle hand on Lily's shoulder. Lily didn't respond for a moment, her second friend speaking up in concern over her silence.

"Lils… please tell us what's going on. What's this meeting all about?" Sirius asked worriedly. Lily saw him bobbing a leg up and down nervously out of the corner of his eye. Yvonne politely refused another chair offered up by Albus, preferring to stand in worry by the corner. Albus' eyes watched her, but she couldn't bring herself to meet his gaze for several seconds.

"I'm fine. I'm sorry, I just need a moment." She stuttered out, head falling into her hands as the emotions she had been suppressing the entire day threatened to bubble over at last. If she was standing, she knew the earth would be spinning at her feet.

"Take as long as you need, Lily." Dumbledore voice drifted warmly over towards her. "One of my contacts at the Ministry informed me that you had taken an international portkey?" He continued.

Merlin, the man had eyes just about everywhere.

"What?" Sirius piped up. "Is this about the Italians? Why didn't you tell us anyth-"

"It was Narcissa Malfoy." Lily interrupted, forcing herself to sit up straight against the back of the chair. "I took a portkey with her to the Italian Ministry."

Yvonne let in a sharp breath. "Lily dear, why ever would you do that? That woman is not to be trusted."

"Never mind that. What did she want?" Sirius half-demanded. Lily took in a few breaths. In and out, in and out.

_Breathe Lily, you'll be okay._ A voice that sounded exactly like James Potter passed through her head, one that she had never felt comfortable asking to leave.

"She wanted to show me something… someone." She stared Albus in the face.

The man's expression was carefully blank, bespeckled eyes remaining neutral. Some tiny part of her, buried deep within, stirred as she looked at him. She couldn't even speak the words just yet, and the dark feeling inside her grew immeasurably worse the moment she looked at the headmaster. Despite this, she forcibly squashed the feelings back down, not wanting to even give them a name.

Doubt was not something she would entertain of a leader as kind, and as good as him.

"Who? I'm not surprised at her meddling. Wait… did she… threaten you?" Yvonne said, hand meeting Lily's shoulder once more.

"No. She showed me… showed me…" Lily's throat closed up around her as she remembered _him._ For several seconds, she sat stiff as a statue on the chair, eyes glazing over.

"Merlin Lily, calm down. Breathe." Sirius' voice broke through the mist that had clouded her mind, and she forced in a few deep breaths through her nose. The room still felt as if all the air had been sucked from it, and her heart had fallen into her stomach.

"Who did she show you, Lily?" Albus spoke up for the first time. "Rest assured, what you tell us will not leave this room."

A faint grumbling from a distant portrait of a centuries-dead headmaster met Lily's ears as she watched them out of the corner of her eye, noticing them for the first time. All the paintings in the room stood with rapt attention, but with secrecy spells sunken into the canvases, they all knew that they would never be able to divulge any secrets even to other paintings. Or, more importantly, real people. She still felt uncomfortable speaking again. Like if what she knew to be true passed through her mouth, the facts would crumble before her eyes and the hope she had would die.

"It was a boy. A little boy." She finally choked out.

"Altair Lestrange?" Yvonne asked. Lily nodded.

"She showed you her… nephew? But why?" Sirius asked. His eyes travelled back and forth between Lily and the headmaster, but he could not ascertain any answers from their silence alone given his rising frustration.

"He… he's the same age as Robert." Lily began. "Ministry estimates put his date of birth in the same month, because he refused to tell it to them. And… and he had black hair. All messy. And green eyes _just _like mine. He looked just like… just like…"

A long, suffocating silence encased them all. First, Sirius and Yvonne looked only confused, before Lily felt long-suppressed tears began to spill from her eyes. At last it finally began to dawn on them, Sirius suddenly sitting up as straight as a board and Yvonne flinching as if Lily's words had physically lashed out at her.

"Lily. I know you've had a very stressful time lately." Yvonne said, hesitance making her voice go up in pitch slightly. "The Ministry. Robert going to school. And now your first relationship since James' death. Are you sure you are not just-"

"No!" Lily burst out, overwhelmed with thoughts of the child. "I know what I saw! And he looked _exactly_ like James did when we were children. It has to be him! Harry didn't die, he's my Harry!"

The words finally came out. The ones she had suffered over for _days._ But instead of the world falling down around her, they felt even more real. They _had_ to be true.

"Lily… there's no way… how could Harry have survived?" Sirius asked, lips taking on a desperate tremor. Lily knew by his tone that he had not even given himself any hope, the past a beast he was unwilling to face or to question.

Lily felt more words tumble out of her almost quicker than even she knew how to keep up with. "Well, Robert survived! How do we know the Lestranges didn't steal Harry before you came, Sirius? We don't know anything about what happened that night! We don't know about You-Know-Who, or how he's gone, or why I don't remember anything. We don't even really know if James is dead, either!" Sirius had gone wide-eyed during her rant, face unspeakably tense as she continued.

"Maybe Bellatrix knows about the prophecy and kidnapped him because of that? Oh my god, that's my _son! _He has my eyes, and James' nose, and his cheekbones. He even _sits_ like James did, for fucks sake!" Lily choked out, a loud sob escaping. Quiet murmurs exploded out of the portraits in the office, now the only noise aside from the gears turning in the heads of the three human occupants.

Yvonne, ever attentive, was the first to speak up. "A prophecy? What prophecy, Lily darling?"

"That can be explained at another time, Ms Lloyd." Albus said immediately before looking Lily right in the eye. The man's face looked slightly ashen, but Lily couldn't see that well through her own tears to know for sure. "Lily, if you believe the Lestrange boy to be Harry Potter, we can make arrangements with the Italian Ministry to perform a parentage spell. Then, we can begin petitioning the Italian Ministry to transfer custody to you."

"I… I already did one. When I was there. Malfoy even told me to do it." Lily said hopelessly.

"You did? What did it say?" Sirius said, his voice sounding sharp and almost biting. Yvonne sent him a severe look, and he cowered ever-so-slightly back in his chair in response.

"It said… it said his name was Altair Arcturus Lestrange." Lily said.

"Lily…" Yvonne started slowly again.

"No, shut up! I know what I saw! It was Harry!" Lily asserted, hurt by her friend's doubting tone.

Yvonne sighed sadly. "I'm so sorry, Lily. But a parentage spell is absolute. There is no better method."

"That… is not exactly true, Ms Lloyd. Parentage spells can be faked, if one has a high understanding and knowledge of the dark arts. Which Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange certainly possess." Albus said evenly. Sirius' head whipped to the other man, eyes narrowing.

"That would be very new magic… figuring out how to change the results of that spell… we don't even know how to find out if somebody has faked it yet. There's no way to prove it." Sirius had a lot of friends in the spell creation field, Lily knew. His words gave her hope. She didn't need any spell to tell her who her son was. But for the rest of the wizarding world…

The headmaster sighed, but for once he did not look quite so world-weary as he often did when faced with bad news. He looked eager, almost. "If you give me some time, I may contact some experts in the field of magical theory. In the meantime, I'm afraid we will have to keep this quiet. Lily, do you know why Narcissa Malfoy has deigned to show you this boy in person, in her position? She clearly at least suspects it, and having him under her own guardianship would be a very powerful weapon, if he truly is your son."

Lily nodded. "She said she wants the Potters and Malfoys to publicly declare friendship."

Yvonne gasped. "That ugly skrewt! If that were to happen-"

"The Italian Wizarding could consider the Malfoys truly innocent. And they would become free to meddle in that entire country's government and businesses." Sirius finished for her. Yvonne crossed her arms angrily, and in the back of Lily's mind she realised that she had _never_ seen her friend looking quite so rattled.

"It would not be quite so life-changing, not immediately. But yes Sirius, the Malfoys could use it to leverage their own position in Italy." Albus confirmed. "It is one of the few places in Europe they haven't claimed influence. I do however, doubt that this will be the only thing the Malfoys request if you were to ask for custody of the boy, only the beginning. If you were to attempt to ignore them and publicly proclaim this boy as Harry Potter without magical evidence of parentage, your case may not be seen as legitimate."

"Many magic users still see a parental check as absolute proof. At best, the rest would see it as inconclusive." Yvonne said.

Albus nodded. "And in any case, the boy would have his face plastered on every newspaper in Europe. The centre of attention for months, perhaps even years, as the court case proceeds. Unless magical theory develops a way to definitively prove that parental spells can be faked, and then subsequently find a way to reverse this falsehood, I'm afraid even a close resemblance to James Potter will not hold up."

Lily was unrelenting. "He's Harry. I can prove it. I was thinking about something I read in a paper the other day. A new technology muggles have developed that can analyse somebody's DNA to see if they are closely related to another person. Would that help?"

Albus hummed thoughtfully. "The Wizarding world does not understand muggle technology. But it could have some sway if framed well, at least with muggleborns that know of it. Perhaps that can be our first step. But again, I would strongly recommend we never discuss this outside of this room. At least for the time being. The boy is only eleven, and already in a doubtlessly traumatising situation."

Lily thought back to the boy she had met, distrusting and silent, eyes so guarded for one his age. "I agree. I don't want him to know. Not yet."

"You didn't tell him anything when you were there?" Sirius asked.

"Of course not." Lily responded. "He thought I was just another ministry worker. I c-couldn't tell him something like that… not there." Narcissa Malfoy's smirk crossed her mind.

Suddenly the red flame in the fireplace tinged green. Yvonne crossed the floor to the hearth immediately, a questioning look on her face.

"Who calls?" She asked. Moments later, the face of Jones appeared through the flames.

"Lloyd!" Jones called. "The delegation from Argentina has called an immediate meeting, and your house elf told me you were at Hogwarts."

Yvonne sighed, looking back at Lily regretfully.

"Go." Lily said. "A meeting at this time of night? You know that's important."

"But still…" Yvonne trailed off sadly. She eventually disappeared into the fireplace, but not without one last hug and whispered reassurance to Lily. Lily knew the woman still felt conflicted, unsure of whether Lily spoke truth or not about the matter. She was a woman defined by logic and skepticism, the redhead had come to terms with that long ago.

Albus, while Yvonne had said her goodbyes, had summoned a bottle of liquor from somewhere, pouring three glasses with it. "Let us have but a moment to mention a less stressful event. You'll be glad to hear the Robert was sorted into Gryffindor House some hours ago."

Sirius smiled tightly, taking the firewhisky offered to him. "I knew he'd make it." He said, taking a large gulp and a sigh.

"Lily… what about Robert? Do we tell him?" He turned to face her, eyes weary and lost.

Lily shook her head quickly. "No. He's just starting school. He needs to be having a happy first year, not worrying about… about this. I will tell him when we need to."

Sirius half-sighed, half-groaned. "I'm gonna need another fucking drink, Professor. I'm gonna need a lot of fucking drinks."

He took a few more mouthfuls of the firewhiskey before standing up and taking the entire bottle in one hand, filling up his glass once more. Lily hadn't touched hers. Dumbledore had taken a few sips in the meantime, looking like he had aged another decade or two.

"What was he like?" Sirius asked, face looking up at the ceiling for a moment, in thought.

Lily thought back to that day. "He was… quiet. Didn't say anything. Only looked at me. I don't think he really cared about me, was just annoyed that he had been called to the ministry."

Sirius huffed. "I would be, too. Ministries sucks and are no fun."

"There was one thing that stood out, though." Lily continued. "He had a strange scar on his forehead, that had an odd pattern. Like… lightning, maybe?"

Sirius turned to her after those words, brows furrowed. "And the rest of him? Was he… okay?"

"He was… a bit thin. And smaller than Robert." Suddenly it dawned on her exactly why that could be so. She felt a cold chill like a dementor's mist wash over her.

Sirius groaned. "I'm gonna be fucking sick, honestly." He still took entire swigs of Albus' firewhisky, anyway, swallowing the strong alcohol down like a natural.

"If he really is Harry-" He started again.

"He is." Lily interrupted.

"-we'll get him back." Sirius reassured without skipping a beat. "I promise you, Lils. I'll never let anything bad happen to him. Not over my own dead body."

* * *

"We have potions today." Ronald pouted, peering at his timetable slip over his toast. "It's a double too. Fred and George said that Professor Snape hexes kids that can't do potions well. What if I can't do potions well? _Rob?"_

"I'm sure it'll be okay." Robert said, mouth half full of the last piece of his pancake. "Besides, did you _see_ the number of paintings on the walls in that place with all the staircases? It was amazing! You know, I really do love magical paintings."

"Yeah, I know." Ron said wryly, however still managing to look depressed even as he chewed on his food.

It was their second day attending Hogwarts, and their initial excitement about the school had dampened down after intense introductory classes. It had hit the first years like a ton of bricks that the school they had just started at was just that… _school._

Neither of them had studied much of their textbooks before the start of term, which they were now beginning to regret. Anthony had provided some help the day before, but the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw first years only had charms together, so they hadn't been able to speak to him much. Robert couldn't help but miss his best friend already but was glad he had already made such a fast friend in the other Gryffindor boy.

"Hey, Rob! Ron!" A blond boy called out from the Ravenclaw table as they left the great hall. Robert grinned from ear-to-ear as he spotted Anthony striding quickly towards them.

"Where are you guys going?" Anthony asked, grabbing his school bag with one hand and a quick last gulp of pumpkin juice with the other, which he placed back onto the end of the Ravenclaw table.

"Potions." Ron said glumly. Anthony cringed.

"I'll walk a bit of the way with you." He said. "We have defence against the dark arts soon, but Quirrell's classroom isn't far from the dungeons."

"Professor Quirrell is kind of odd, isn't he?" Robert said as the three boys began their trek through the halls.

"You mean the neverending stutter?" Anthony chucked. "Yeah, I'm worried I won't understand a word he says. Good luck with potions, by the way. We had our first potions class yesterday, it was… interesting, to say the least. Ugh."

"Was he mean? Snape, I mean?" Ron asked nervously. Robert couldn't help but also be a bit anxious himself. He hadn't yet interacted with the mysterious, greasy-haired potions professor, but the man's sour disposition had intimidated the boy from where he had spotted him at the professor's table. Anthony opened his mouth to respond before a loud voice called from behind them.

"Hey, Goldstein!" A boy yelled. Another first year Ravenclaw hurried up to them, immediately babbling something about defence class at a speed that Robert couldn't hope to keep up with.

"And I know I was supposed to read up on the chapter last night." The brown-haired Ravenclaw sighed. "But I forgot, okay! Please tell me what it was about!" Anthony's eyes went back and forth between the boy and Robert and Ron, looking guilty.

"It's fine." Robert said. "Talk at lunch, yeah?"

"Actually…" Anthony hesitated. "I kind of already made plans to do homework with Cornfoot."

"Oh." Robert said. "Okay, then. Maybe tonight? Or tomorrow?"

"Sure." Anthony nodded, before turning to speak to the Ravenclaw boy, who sheepishly introduced himself as Michael Corner.

The two redheaded boys continued walking, alone this time. Down, down, and down the flights of stairs they went towards the Hogwarts dungeons. They arrived at a group of several Gryffindor and Slytherin students already waiting outside the classroom. Robert recognised Anthony's cousin Sally-Anne, as well as Hermione and he and Ron's two dorm mates, Dean and Seamus. Sally-Anne greeted them as they arrived, but Hermione stood off to the side, staring at the floor and occasionally glancing at the other Gryffindors as the two boys joined the loose group. It seemed the girl had made no friends in the house just yet.

After a few minutes of waiting, the doors to the classroom suddenly opened, with a deep voice commanding them to enter forcing the first years into gear. They quickly entered the dark and dingy classroom, with Robert and Ronald racing for seats at the back of the room. The minutes stretched out in an awkward kind of silence as the last of the students trickled in. As the clock on the wall ticked to nine, the students all sat upright expectantly.

In a corner of the classroom, a dark figure emerged. Professor Snape, dressed all in black, flowing robes glided over to the front of the classroom, glaring all the while. The Gryffindors tensed up, wary of the Slytherin house head, but the students in green and silver were clearly a lot more confident. Robert noticed Malfoy smirking with glee as he watched Snape raptly.

"There will be no foolish wand waving or silly incantations in this class." Snape began. He folded his arms in front of him, looking all the part of a scary bat. He shifted his gaze to each of the students in turn, seeming to glare at the few that looked openly scared of him.

"As such, I don't expect many of you to appreciate the subtle science and exact art that is potion-making. However, for those select few…" Malfoy sat up a bit straighter as the teacher paused in his speech, Snape turning to look at him in particular for a moment.

"...who possess, the predisposition… I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death." Then, Snape's eye's met Robert. Robert forced himself not to look away, meeting his gaze evenly. Snape's face was blank before he moved onto the next student. Robert tried not to look too openly relieved, just realising he had ceased to breathe during the interaction.

"Then again, maybe some of you have come to Hogwarts in possession of abilities so formidable that you feel confident enough to not pay attention! Perks!" The professor slammed a fist down upon the desk in front of him, a short scream coming from Sally-Anne's mouth as she was surprised. Robert craned his neck to see that during the professor's speech, the girl had been reading something in her textbook. Snape glared at her menacingly, and Robert immediately felt sympathy for the clearly terrified girl.

"I'm sorry, professor!" She gasped, seizing up and staring at her desk.

"Well students, it appears one of your classmates has shown a great deal more interest in her books than her own professor." Snape smirked. "Tell me, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

A hand shot up from the other side of the classroom instantly. Hermione held her hand up high, eager to answer. Robert couldn't see her face, but from Sally-Anne's lack of response he knew she was completely dumbfounded.

"Disappointing." Snape tuttered, completely ignoring Hermione. "Where then girl, would you be able to find a bezoar?"

Hermione's hand stayed in the air, the girl growing more desperate to answer. The Slytherins sniggered. Sally-Anne stayed quiet. Snape's sneer grew at her silence.

"What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

"I-I don't know any of that, p-professor…" Sally-Anne choked out, clearly mortified. Snape took a step back from her desk, addressing the whole class once more when he spoke again.

"For yet another year, Gryffindor house has been most disappointing. Ten points from Gryffindor." Sally-Anne gasped in horror, hands travelling to her face as she wiped tears from her eyes. Hermione put her hand down dejectedly, Snape not even glancing at her once since he had started speaking.

The lesson involved brewing up a cure for boils. Robert had looked briefly at his potions textbook the night before, and luckily managed to prevent a clueless Ron from adding too many snake fangs and completely sabotaging their shared potion. Robert gave Sally-Anne a few worried glances during the rest of the class, where she and another Gryffindor girl attempted to make progress on their own potion. Judging by the grey sludge in their pot, it wasn't going too well so far. Robert only prayed Snape wouldn't notice it by the end of the class.

"Ah yes, Mister Potter." Snape said as he prowled up towards the two boys. He didn't regard Ron at all as he watched Robert like a hawk.

"Professor." Robert said politely, staring down at his potion and counting the swirls he gave it.

"This looks… adequate." Snape almost seemed to choke the words out, glaring all the while at Robert and Ron's potion. _Adequate? It looks exactly like it should!_ Robert thought to himself. The potion was exactly the shade of blue that was described in the textbook, even Malfoy's was probably a few shades too pale, and he had given that jerk compliments for ages!

"Don't think for a second I will be another bumbling fool set on blindly reaffirming your _greatness,_ Potter." Snape declared. Robert's head rose in shock. Snape's eyes were dark up close, and Robert felt like Snape was staring into the his very soul in that moment.

"Just because your mother is so popular doesn't mean you're the next Gryffindor golden boy. I expect the entire class to deliver me two feet of parchment on the importance of _not overdosing your potion with snake fangs."_

He delivered a sharp look to Ron as he spoke, the other boy flinching at the look on the teacher's face. The Slytherins groaned, but Snape only scoffed, moving back up to the front of the class and shaking off their annoyance with the wave of a hand.

"Blimey, that sucked." Ron remarked the moment they had finally left the classroom. "Poor Perks, what did she do to deserve that?"

Robert shrugged. "I dunno. Snape sucks."

"You can say that again, mate."

Together, the two first years made their way out of the dungeons, never noticing a shy mousey-haired girl following several feet behind them.


	12. Chapter 12

Lily sighed as she stamped another letter, the wax imprint of the British Ministry of Magic lying wet on the sealed envelope. She normally wasn't delegated to more mundane tasks like this, but with higher up figures, it was best to employ a more personal touch. She placed the letter aside, picking up another one that dorned a familiar name.

_Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore._

She hadn't seen the Hogwarts headmaster since the first day of the Hogwarts semester. After the war had ended, the old Order of the Phoenix had been formally disbanded, and she sometimes regretted how distant she had become to the former members. After the dust had cleared and the bodies had been buried, everyone simply found it too hard to see one another the same way. They were not young, idealised students of Albus Dumbledore anymore, and it was sometimes too much to bear, dwelling on the past and being reminded of everything they had lost. The Order's leader was one of the few she remained in contact with, and she privately really did hope he would decide to emerge from his castle to attend the pre-Yuletide party in the ministry. For some reason, the man had been very reluctant to leave Hogwarts since the term had begun, even politely refusing an afternoon at Honeydukes proposed by Yvonne. Lily was immediately suspicious, the old wizard _never_ turned down sweets.

The guestlist for the party however, was shaping up to be an interesting one. Many public figures from all over the world were going to be in attendance. Public figures that would be delighted to be in the company of one as esteemed as the man who brought down Grindelwald. Lily hoped her personal note at the end of the letter would work.

_Surely he wouldn't turn me down with this._ She thought wryly as she snuck a single lemon drop into the envelope before sealing it with a Ministry stamp.

Gaining information about the boy had taken much longer than Lily had expected. The Italian wizards at the British ministry had refused to reveal the address of Altair Lestrange to her, as well as whoever was his current foster parent. She didn't dare approach Narcissa Malfoy. The woman did not contact her again either, seeing fit to wait for Lily to give in to her first demand in her own time. Lily would have felt more useful slowing down the custody transfer process at the very least, just so that woman couldn't get her hands on him, but the process was so slow anyway that she honestly couldn't have made it any worse had she tried. The Italian ministry was so choked up with bureaucratic nonsense that there was hardly any progress to track from her end. The Malfoy family had their own lawyers, and beyond the Italian ministry's pledge to eventually have the boy returned to Britain, there wasn't much left in Lily's hands.

Leaving the letters for the department secretary to deal with, Lily made her way to the Ministry's floo system, knowing already which fireplace held the international connection she needed. She let the flames envelop her as she stepped through the grate.

Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange though, was another matter entirely. She was glad that she at least had a distraction while she waited for an opportunity to arise. Regardless, the months passed by agonisingly slowly for her, the autumn beginning to disappear into a cold white winter by the time she at last had a breakthrough. And it was by pure chance, really.

One of the employees for the Child Protection Department had mentioned in passing that Altair Lestrange's foster mother was going to the ministry the following day when Lily was passing by them in the main office. She had frozen up in surprise, watching the two like a hawk and hoping they might divulge any more. They had not, but they had given her just enough information that she might have a shot at meeting someone connected to the boy.

And finally, Lily stood in the Italian Ministry of Magic atrium for the first time, the magical marvel beautiful, but the redhead much too distracted to properly enjoy it.

She followed the signage to the department she had visited the first time she had been in the place, grateful her somewhat limited Italian got her that far. It didn't take long before she was stood outside the door to the department in the lonely hallway, a slow wave of anxiety building up within her. She waited and waited, the emotion building up in her and washing over her chest like her heart was somebody's personal punching bag. The door opened and out stepped a young couple she didn't recognise, with a little girl on the woman's hip. Lily gave them a tight-lipped smile as they passed by, the man giving her a quick look of confusion before shaking it off and disappearing down the bend in the hall.

She had rehearsed in her head what she had planned to say to the woman that was taking care of Altair Lestrange… of Harry. The more time passed since her meeting in Hogwarts, the more she became certain it was him. A part of her, a dark voice at the back of her head, only laughed at her as she thought this. It was a voice that sounded just like her, one that disguised itself as the voice of reason, always pointing out her faults and deepest insecurities. Try as she might, the voice was unrelenting in insisting that the boy was not her son.

_You've gone mad._ It said gleefully. _Look at you, the wizarding world thinks you're their saviour, and you're concerning yourself with ghosts of the past instead of doing any real good. James would be ashamed to see you have not moved on._

And it was especially devastating knowing that it could be right. James' cottage in Godric's Hollow had grown colder since Robert had left for Hogwarts, and it wasn't just the approaching winter making it so. Even Alexander, the muggle man that the butterflies in her stomach still danced for despite everything, had remarked that something was off about her lately. She hadn't told him about the Lestrange boy yet and didn't dare to when she saw the way her two best friends looked at her every day.

Although she had been hopeful that they would accept her words at face value, especially Sirius after that night, the following weeks had led the two to a different kind of attitude. Sirius had mourned as hard as she had after _that night_ in 1981_,_ and although the man remained supportive of her in her quest to find out more about Altair Lestrange, the doubt he had let seep into his features and his tone of voice had never gone away since the day after the meeting in Dumbledore's office. The man had lost his best friend in the world, as well as his godson, when he was only 21. The grief had threatened to swallow him whole, but he had recovered. Just the way Lily had thought she had recovered. They went from two broken young people to two respectable ministry employees, an entire decade passing them by. Lily would reminisce sometimes about how Sirius used to be, before the war. There was no doubt that a teenage Sirius Black would have screamed in outrage if he were to see himself today as just another ministry worker, but the man had been reformed by time and experience, as well as by Lily herself. Together, they had made a life where Lily and James' only son could have a nice home and two real parental figures.

Yvonne had become more detached as well. The woman was still kind enough to nod empathetically the few times Lily had attempted to broach the topic of Altair Lestrange, but for the first time in their years-long friendship Yvonne had not shared in Lily's latest obsession. Whether it was the redhead joining a muggle knitting group or branching out and studying a new up-and-coming field of arithmancy in her spare time, the other woman had always been on the same page when it came to Lily's passions. That being pure and unadulterated support. She had never met James or Harry Potter in life, and the pair must seem more like abstract concepts to her, Lily knew. She had never had to mourn their loss, and never knew the complete devastation Lily had faced first hand. That was why she couldn't understand why Lily had to see this though, even if it was nothing but a pipe dream, even if Altair Lestrange really did just happen to look like James Potter, and that was all.

And Robert… what was she to do about Robert? Lily thought she would have been destroyed if her second son hadn't made it. The fear about his future kept her up at nights sometimes, the fear of the possibility of Lord Voldemort returning and finishing what he started. The world may think Lily had vanquished the Dark Lord, but she knew better. Dumbledore had never told her explicitly, but she knew it had to have been one of her sons that had defeated him somehow, even though they were but babes at the time. If Voldemort were to return, Robert would surely be at risk. And if _Harry_ were to have survived…

...he could be even less safe.

Suddenly, the door twisted open once more, where a rather short, brown haired woman dressed in muggle clothes passed the threshold.

"Carla Colombo?" Lily asked as the woman turned to face her, confused.

"_Si?"_ The woman said. "_Cosa vuoi?_"

Lily hesitated. She knew enough about the woman from the limited searching she was permitted (without raising eyebrows) to know only a few things about her.

"_Lei p-parla inglese?"_ She stuttered out, hoping that Colombo had retained a good grasp on her second language when she had studied in London.

"English?" The woman said, blinking. "Yes, is there a problem?"

"I need to speak with you, Ms Colombo." Lily said seriously. "Is there somewhere we can talk?"

Carla Colombo gave her a stern look, quickly taking in her surroundings. There was no one else anywhere near them, aside from whoever was in the department they were right outside of.

"We can talk right here, Ms…?"

Lily nodded. "Potter. My name is Lily Potter."

Colombo did not react, either smoothly reigning a reaction in, or perhaps not even recognising the name.

"And why, Ms Potter..." The woman said, eyes filling with suspicion. "...have you been waiting outside of this department to speak with me?"

"Well…" Lily trailed off. Merlin, hadn't she rehearsed this a million times over? She had, but all the skillfully crafted words had seemingly fallen right out of her head and onto the floor within seconds, seeping into the ancient tiles below. Colombo did not ease up on her harsh expression as the redhead fumbled for words.

"I need to talk to you about the boy you've been fostering." Lily began. Colombo's eyebrows twitched queerly, perhaps seeing the desperation painting Lily's face despite her best efforts to remain calm.

"And what about him? He is a good boy, you know." Colombo said, mouth receding into a harsh, thin line. "I don't know how you know about him, but I'm telling you right now to _back off._ You won't get a single word from me about him for your little tabloid."

"No, no Ms Colombo!" Lily said frantically as the woman began to move in the opposite direction. Colombo stopped on her path, sighing as she rounded on Lily again. She opened her mouth to say something, but Lily interrupted her this time.

"I've met him before." Lily exclaimed. "In there." She pointed to the door. "Narcissa Malfoy introduced me to him."

A hint of confusion passed the woman's face. "Why would she ever do that? Who are you?"

"My name is Lily Potter." Lily only said again. "On Halloween in 1981, the Dark Lord Voldemort came to my home and murdered my husband and one of our sons. But I, and our other son survived... here!"

Lily reached into her robe pocket desperately. The other woman flinched back before the redhead procured a small picture of a little boy and shoved it into her hands.

"This is my son, Robert. He just started at Hogwarts this year."

"Why are you showing me this?" Colombo asked, looking nervously towards the photo. Robert was around nine or ten there, clad in a thick winter coat and grinning triumphantly next to an impressive snowman that rivalled him in height.

"My two boys were born at the end of July." Colombo looked up again, staring into Lily's eyes. She was looking at Lily like she was a crazy person. Lily pressed on, determined.

"The end of July." She repeated. "There were no bodies recovered, only my husband's wand. Altair Lestrange was born in July, the same time as my Robert. A-And there was no record of Bellatrix Lestrange ever being pregnant-"

"Ms Potter…" The woman whispered, demeanor shifting.

"No!" Lily stopped her. She rifled through her robe pocket once more. The other woman didn't look quite so intimidated anymore, only pitying as Lily fumbled with the second picture. Lily forced it into her hands like she had done with the first.

"This is my husband when he was the same age as Altair Lestrange is today." Lily said. Colombo's gaze went down to the picture she was holding. Her expression morphed very slowly from pity to something else entirely.

The picture depicted a young James Potter, sitting in Hogwarts robes inscribed with a Gryffindor red and gold on the front. He sat in what had have been a magical version of a photo booth, looking utterly put out and annoyed. He alternated between folding and unfolding his arms, huffing and pouting. The first time she had seen it, Lily had assumed that he must have been set up by his elderly parents to take the image. They were ever so proud of their boy, every step along the way until the very end.

"This…" Colombo said slowly. "This is…"

"Malfoy introduced me to Altair Lestrange when I had no business seeing him." Lily said as she watched the woman stare at the picture. "She knows that he can only be the son I lost. I don't know how, but the Lestranges must have taken him after we were attacked."

"What was the baby's name? The one that you lost?" The woman asked, head moving up to look at Lily once more.

"Harry. His name was Harry." Lily said. Colombo did not speak for a moment, the fine lines spreading across her face making her look years older.

"I'm sorry but… I'm not sure why you have told me this." Colombo frowned, worry etched onto her face. "Surely you should be contacting the ministry with this information."

Lily took in a breath. This was the part she had worried about. "I performed a parental check spell on… Altair... when Mrs Malfoy introduced me. It insisted his name was indeed Altair."

Unbelievably, the woman did not react in any strong way to the statement. "So? What does that mean?" She asked.

Lily tried not to outwardly react to the woman's words, though inside her mind was racing. "Well… wizards have taken that spell at face value for centuries, always believing it to show the truth."

"I'm not a wizard." The woman deadpanned. She glanced back at the two pictures in her hands, the two boys animatedly moving in their own ways within the confines of the photos. One grinning, the other slumping in childish angst.

"Can this spell be faked, Ms Potter?"

"We believe so." Lily said.

"'We'? Who is 'we?'" The woman asked suspiciously.

"Nobody putting anything about this on a ministry's books, if that's what you're wondering." Lily replied quickly. "Look, I came here to ask something of you. Muggles have developed something called a 'DNA test'. DNA is-"

"I know what DNA is." Colombo cut her off. "You're telling me you wish to… go to a muggle scientist and do a DNA test with, say, a lock of the boy's hair?"

Lily sighed in relief. She had anticipated a much stronger reaction. Hair could and had been used in dark potions and enchantments before, she was glad the woman understood.

"Yes." She said. "If the magic can be faked, I need a muggle test just to… just to know for certain." Her voice rose a little at the end, emotion breaking through.

The words seemed to have worked for the other woman, who looked at Lily sympathetically and nodded her head. "DNA. Something that not even wizards can conceal. It is a good plan."

The woman was quiet for a moment before she spoke again. "Why did Malfoy introduce you to the boy, then? She must have known you would try to take the boy from her."

"She doesn't know what DNA is." Lily said wryly. "And I'm sure she has a long list of… things she might make me do to get my son back, if he_ is_ my Harry. Things I've pledged to not do. Things I cannot do."

The woman nodded again. "I will give you some of his hair. But he will remain none the wiser, and you will have no contact with him until I at least have some proof, as well."

Lily understood the woman's terms were the best possible result. "Thank you, Ms Colombo." She made her way out of the hallway after finishing with those words, mind filled with thoughts of a little black-haired boy. Carla Colombo watched her leave, two forgotten pictures still held in her hands. She looked down at them before sighing deeply, exasperatedly.

* * *

"So Altair, I have heard from Signora Colombo that you have been… difficult as of late."

"So?" Altair forced out, fingers playing with the loose threads of the armchair. He watched healer Russo out of the corner of his eye as his charmed quill wrote endless notes inside his notebook.

The healer sighed. "Altair, you're going to be here for quite some time, I'm afraid. Why don't you make the most of it? It's a beautiful villa that you live in, a lot of other foster children around Europe would be quite jealous."

"I heard the other foster children got to go to _school." _Altair gritted his teeth, folding his arms across his chest rebelliously.

"Now Altair, I understand you are still upset that the ministry has not let you into Luponero_._ However, do keep in mind your aunt most desperately wants to have you. Maybe next year, with some extra tutoring, you will be able to attend Hogwarts." Russo said, the man adopting a sincere expression.

The boy fumbled for words. "But I don't want to go to Hogwarts _next year_. I want to go to Luponero _now._"

"I'm sorry, my boy. I understand." Russo said quickly. "It's an unfair situation, but it is one you have been dealt with. I can see discussing this makes you frustrated."

"_Frustrated?_ _Al Medici!_ I hate it."

"Now, now, no need to swear." The man said sternly. "Maybe we can talk about other things, for a moment? During my last visit you mentioned you had a little friend in Naples that was a muggleborn? How exciting for you to have met another of us by chance like that."

Altair stared out of the large villa windows, hesitating for a moment as he gazed the cool grey sky that had washed over the home. "Ezio was… nice. But I don't wanna talk about him."

The healer hummed, going quiet for a moment before he elected to speak again. Altair waited, wishing that the hour they had would come to an end sooner. He wasn't used to discussing _feelings_ with anybody, what was he supposed to _do?_

"You've never said much about your life before coming to us, Altair. Was it… hard for you? What were your parents like?" Russo spoke very slowly now, like he was approaching a startled animal.

The man had asked him this every time he had spoken to Altair. The boy let out an exasperated noise. Just as he had expected, Russo gave him a pitying look. He hated that. He didn't understand _why_. "Altair… what kinds of things would they do to you?"

Altair thought about his parents, locked in cages right this very moment. "I won't tell."

"Altair, there is nothing you say to me that I can disclose to anyone in the ministry, unless you ask me to or if you tell me something that puts your own or somebody else's safety at risk. You don't have to be afraid. What were your parents like to you?"

Altair kept silent. Watching the boy's expression, a strange look flashed across the mind healer's face, as if suddenly understanding something.

"Your parents are in our prison now." He said carefully, meeting Altair's eyes unblinkingly. "They cannot get to you, no matter what you say to me. They will never even know, I promise you. I took a magical oath the day I started my work."

Altair still sat there for several moments, body rigid and unmovable. Then suddenly he felt words spilling out of him, like a dam overflowing.

"They're not as bad as everyone's saying they are. Everybody I talk to says they're like, the worst wizards to ever exist, or something. I mean, sure they were kinda mean, but they weren't that bad! They weren't _evil!_ They just let me do my own thing, _like I want to right now._" He finished lamely.

"They… let you do your own thing?" Russo asked. Altair nodded.

"They were… gone. Sometimes weeks, sometimes months. Doing things for… I don't know." He trailed off, suddenly thinking to himself that he _really didn't know _what his parents got up to.

"They left you, a boy too young to even attend Luponero, on your own for months at a time. How did being left behind make you feel?"

Altair's gaze met the floor, confused and suddenly angry. "I was fine! I survived! They never tortured me or anything!"

"Aurors discovered you crying out for help, locked in a cellar."

"They… they didn't do that very often! Only when I was… bad…"

There was a long, deafening silence after that. Altair _hated_ that. He wasn't a victim. He didn't want to be a victim. That's what Russo thought, wasn't it? He didn't want to look up again, to see the pitying look he knew would be there.

"And what did you do that was so 'bad'?" Russo asked softly, like Altair was a broken little bird. _Ugh._

"I… went where I wasn't supposed to go…" _Oh no._ Altair felt something funny in his throat, wanting to come out, wanting to choke him. His chest seized, feeling like it had been punched into his guts. His lungs suddenly felt like they couldn't get enough air. Russo didn't say anything again, but Altair didn't pay him any mind, fixated on a piece of carpet on the floor as he struggled to get his breathing under control. He didn't want to be here. His toes twitched as he felt an inexplicable urge to run away.

"I'm glad to hear that Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange didn't cause serious harm to you." Russo said. Altair blinked several times, thrown off by the sudden change in attitude by the healer. "However, they are people wanted for crimes in several countries, as well as for being high-ranking supporters of the Dark Lord. Do you know what a dark lord is, Altair?"

"A bit." Altair said, still watching the floor. Avoiding eye contact seemed to be his new thing. "But they never told me anything about any 'Dark Lord.'"

The notebook suddenly fell to the floor, a piece of parchment tucked away in it dislodging and landing at the boy's feet.

"Sorry about that!" The healer said, reaching for his wand and sending the notebook back up into the air. The piece of parchment went with it, sucking itself back into the book faster than Altair could blink. "Spell always wears off at the worst of times."

"My birthday isn't on the twelfth. It's the fifteenth." Altair said.

The healer raised his eyebrows. "Oh? You have a sharp eye there, my boy." He gave a sideways glance to the parchment that detailed the known information about Altair, pulling it out with his hand and peering at it.

"It looks like we guessed pretty well then, didn't we?" He mused. "You were so quiet the first few weeks that I believe the ministry made up a date for you. You said July 1980, but no day, do you remember?"

Altair bit his lip. "I mean, I'm not sure if it's really my birthday. Mother and Father never told me so I just… picked it…"

"Interesting. Well regardless, I'll ask about having it changed for you."

The front door to the villa opened, and Altair twisted his body in the chair to watch Carla enter. For some reason, the squib looked dazed, hands twisted into fists and looking surprised to see the pair seated.

"Apologies, healer Russo." She started. "I hope I haven't interrupted anything."

"Not to worry, signora." Russo waved her off. "Altair wanted to watch the sky today. Looks like those dreadful clouds are finally clearing up, hey?" He gave Altair a look. Altair shrugged, looking out the windows again. The entrance hall of the villa really was the nicest place to look outside. It was Altair's favourite place.

"Hey Carla, can I go flying after this?" Altair asked, head whipping back around again to his foster mother.

Carla watched as the dark clouds inched away, a bright blue slowing beginning to replace the spots in the sky where they left. "Sure Altair, but remember: no flying outside the boundaries of the villa. Peeky will know if you do."

"Yeah, yeah…" Altair sighed.

"I mean it, now."

"You enjoy flying Altair?" Russo asked lightly. Carla disappeared into another room, fists clenched strangely at her sides the whole time. Altair watched her go, confused by her odd behavior for a moment before turning back to the healer.

Altair shrugged. "It's fine. It's… fun."

"Do you listen to quidditch matches on the radio?" Russo smiled.

"No. I've only ever seen it in books Peeky got me. I don't know if I'd be good enough to do it but… it might be cool…" Altair thought about the sport, with the chasers, and the beaters to throw them off. The keepers that reminded him of muggle soccer, and the chaser, a role unique to the magical sport...

"You'll have a cousin your age when you arrive in Britain. Maybe he could teach you how to fly? Most boys your age love it." Russo said.

Altair thought about the Malfoys. How had he forgotten about that? His aunt had a son that was exactly his age!

"You think he'd teach me? I don't even know his name…"

"I'm sure he would, if you asked. Are you excited to meet him?"

Altair wondered what the boy looked like. He knew his name was Draco. Did Draco have blond hair like his mother? Or would he look more like his Aunt Bellatrix? Could he even look like Altair? "Maybe. I don't know. I think so?"

The hour finished not long after, at long last. By the time Altair finally burst out onto the villa's grounds, uncaring of the winter cold, he was filled with thoughts of his cousin. As he leapt to the air on an old cleansweep seven, he imagined the other boy flying in the air right next to him, laughing and playing with him.

* * *

Al Medici - I tried making a wizards version of the Italian curse "Al diavolo" (to the devil). Given the Medicis are considered bad by many Italians nowadays, them being replaced with the devil seemed fitting for the magic version. Perhaps Carla muttered it to herself after stubbing her toe on a table in front of Altair and he (being a preteen) thought 'yes, another one I must add to my repertoire.'


	13. Chapter 13

The winter had enveloped Hogwarts quickly that year. The grounds became drenched with white almost overnight, and the initial wonder of the season's first snowfall quickly succumbed to displeasure over the bitter cold when students were forced to venture out of the thick castle walls for classes. While Robert found himself enjoying his time at the school now that he had gotten used to the workload, he couldn't help but feel the same as Ron when he groaned despairingly whenever they had to make for the greenhouses.

"Thank Merlin, we're back." Ron said, loosening the red and gold scarf around his neck as they made it through the doors to the entrance hall. "I almost thought my fingers would freeze off."

White flecks covered the boy's red hair, a thin layer of cold snow peppering their heads as they scurried up the hill to the castle. It melted off them as the boys walked past lantern after lantern to the stairwell.

"C'mon, we got a free period now. Wanna play chess in the common room?" Robert asked, grinning and already knowing the effect the suggestion would have on his grumpy friend. Ron instantly perked up, nodding enthusiastically despite a shiver causing his teeth to chatter.

The pair made their way up the many Hogwarts staircases, past the tapestries along the walls in the stone halls before making it to the portrait of the Fat Lady. Inside, a warm gust of hot air welcomed their red faces as they made their way past her portrait. Most of the older Gryffindor students had classes on a Wednesday afternoon, so the boys found themselves in the company of only a few sixth years and some first year girls Robert only vaguely knew the names of. The sixth years sat in one corner near the fireplace, scribbling furiously on their parchments and all looking a little haggard. Robert didn't envy them, thinking about the N.E.W.T.s that the school's oldest cohorts always lost sleep over. The first year girls, Lavender and Parvati, glanced up at the pair as they entered the common room and giggled, whispering to themselves on the sofa in front of the fireplace.

"Ok, I get white this time!" Ron called out, completely oblivious to the girls. He raced to the corner where a set of wizards' chess sat on a small shelf. Robert felt his face grow hot as he looked at the two other first years shyly. They didn't look at him again, so eventually he focused his attention back on his friend, who had scooped the chess set up off the shelf and was looking at him expectantly.

The two boys sat down at an empty table, setting out the pieces quickly. One of Ron's white pawns moved first, a competitive glint already visible in his eye as Robert tried not to laugh at his blatant enthusiasm. Robert had rarely won a match against him in the few months they had known each other. It had frustrated him endlessly at first, but by now he had pretty much accepted that Ron would always best him in it nine times out of ten. Besides, it just made winning that once all the more fun given his friend's competitive streak.

The game went on in relative silence, the only other sounds being the mutterings of Lavender and Parvati, and the scribbling quills of the sixth years.

"Again?" Robert pouted at Ron's smug _"checkmate!"_ before crossing his arms. "I didn't even… wow."

"Sorry mate." Ron said, but judging by the smile on his face Robert knew he wasn't sorry at all.

"I'll get you this time!" Robert announced, repositioning all the pieces. The black set of characters all gave him exasperated looks, looking at their white counterparts fearfully as the game began again. As the boys played, the other first years all straggled in, some in small groups and others in pairs. Robert's concentration was broken as he noticed the final student trail in by the start of their third game. Hermione Granger was alone, looking down at the floor as she entered the common room, a large book in hand and a frown on her face.

Robert realised with a start that he had never seen the girl ever hanging out with anyone in the time since they had first met before the sorting ceremony. Well, she used to sit with Fay Dunbar and Sally-Anne, hadn't she? He recalled as much in the first few weeks. But it appeared something must have happened, given that the girl was by herself now.

"Your turn, Rob." Ron said, making the boy leave his thoughts for a moment as he looked down onto the board. Ron had moved one of his knights forward, but why, he didn't have any clue. He absently moved a pawn sitting in front of one of his towers as he glanced back around the common room once more.

Hermione had gone to sit in an armchair next to Parvati and Lavender, setting her school bag down on the floor with a heavy _thump_ (did she have even _more_ books in there?) and opening the large textbook on her lap. Robert squinted at it, trying to make out its cover. While he knew his father had needed glasses by the time he started Hogwarts, Robert was lucky enough to have been gifted with good eyesight.

"_Good enough to be a great seeker one day!"_ Uncle Sirius had said encouragingly when he was younger, before they all realised James Potter's son was absolutely useless on a broom.

Twenty twenty vision or no, he still had no idea what the book was, other than it being something definitely _not_ assigned to them for any class. As Hermione leafed through the pages, Lavender and Parvati seemed to notice her for the first time, heads turning in her direction. Lavender said something that Robert couldn't hear, before the two girls giggled and began inching across the sofa away from the other girl, unpleasant looks twisting their faces to something unpleasant. Hermione froze as the girl's words entered her earshot, but her expression was obscured by her fringe.

"C'mon mate, are you gonna go or what?" Ron chimed in impatiently. Parvati pointed towards Hermione, saying something in clear hearing range of the mousy-haired girl, before sneering. Hermione's posture began to slump into the armchair at the words.

Robert stood abruptly, the chair he was on getting stuck on the carpet in his haste.

"Hey, what are you doing? Rob?" Ron whined as Robert quickly lifted the chair up, moving it back properly and standing up straight.

"Have you ever seen Granger hang out with anybody else? Ever?" He said, shooting a meaningful look at Ron. Ron only frowned at him in response. He surveyed the room, perhaps noticing its occupants properly for the first time, before his gaze settled on the muggleborn girl.

"Well, no. What's this about, anyway? Can't we just keep playing?" He huffed, brown eyes meeting Robert's again. But there was something different in his expression when Robert looked at his friend again. He had noticed Lavender and Parvati as well.

"No." Robert said simply. "I'm going to hang out with Granger."

And with those words he was off, a confused Ronald Weasley stuttering at his heels as Robert crossed the room to where the lonely girl sat.

"Hello, Hermione." He said after he approached, watching as her head shot up from the book in her lap. He heard Ron fumbling behind him, rushing to pack up the chess set to hover behind him.

"R-Robert?" Hermione's eyes widened as she took him in, almost disbelievingly. Lavender and Parvati had stopped speaking as well. Even Dean and Seamus, lounging on the other side of the room, had peeked their heads up from their game of exploding snap.

"What's that you've got there?" Robert asked, pointing to the massive tome resting in the girl's lap.

"This?" Hermione hesitated, looking down at the book. She closed it, some dust even flying out as it snapped shut. Calling it old would be an understatement.

"It's a b-book about powerful sorcerers. It's got N-Nicolas Flamel on it. I'm doing some light reading on him." Hermione met his gaze hesitantly. Robert let out an easy grin.

"Nicolas Flamel?" He exclaimed. "My mum knows him. They're friends, she told me."

"Really? Your mother?" Hermione's eyes seemed to sparkle at his words.

"Yeah. Hey, how about we go to a study room that's more quiet than here and we talk about him some more?" Robert said, giving a sideways glance at Lavender and Parvati, who hadn't moved an inch since he had approached their dormmate.

"Okay!" Hermione said, standing up excitedly. "I'll bring the book! Just let me take my bag into my dorm!" She placed the tome down onto the empty armchair before launching off towards the girl's dormitories, school bag over one shoulder.

"Wait, what? You wanna go to a _study room_ to talk about some ruddy old wizard? With _her?_" Ron frowned, dragging his feet towards Robert with an obvious slouch in his posture.

"Yep." Robert only said, not missing a beat. "Wanna come?"

Ron gawked, seemingly shocked that Robert had even thought to ask him that question.

"Why would I _ever_ wanna do that? She's weird!" Ron whispered harshly. "She hasn't got any friends for a reason, ya know!"

Robert's face grew stern as the two first year girls on the nearby sofa nodded solemnly at the other redhead's words.

"That's mean, Ron." Robert said. "You know, when I started at Hogwarts, I thought that Gryffindor was the best house. The house for the _brave_, and the _just._ But right now, you're being a bully."

Ron's jaw dropped. "No, I'm not!"

"Yeah, you are." Robert insisted. "Malfoy calls me weird too, and you're being exactly like him."

Ron tensed up, clearly not expecting such a personal callout from Robert like this. Robert half expected him to simply storm off. Ron even moved a foot backwards in the direction of the boy's dorms, seemingly considering doing just so. He seemed just about ready to turn on his heel and leave before he moved the foot forward again, sighing.

"I guess… you're right." The boy held his head down. "Maybe… maybe we can just see what she's like, for now."

The sound of eager feet racing back down the girl's staircase hit their ears, and Hermione quickly crossed the room towards the boys, passing Ron and back to the large book. She picked it up, holding it almost reverently in her hands.

"The place near the tapestry of the lady in the lake on the third floor is a good one if we wanna talk without many people." She said to Robert in a single breath, before turning to Ron.

For a moment, Ron said nothing, looking awkwardly in silence at the girl.

"Hey." He finally said. "I'm coming with."

"Oh. Okay!" Hermione said. "Have you read up on Flamel, as well? Truly a fascinating man, isn't he?"

"Uh, yeah. Totally…" Ron trailed off as the three left the Gryffindor common room behind.

The three students passed the corridors in a pleasant small talk. Well, Robert felt himself having a pleasant time, talking to Hermione about the history of Flamel and his most famous achievements in the field of alchemy (a topic his mother had often engaged with him over the dinner table). Ron mostly walked a few paces behind them, grumbling to himself about the chess game he was certain he would have won. The occasional cold burst of air blew through the castle windows as they walked, windows where the historical building's permanent warming charms were yet to have been renewed (information Hermione had helpfully supplied).

"Hang on, if they're supposed to be permanent, then why do they keep needing to be done over and over again?" Ron asked, acknowledging the girl for the first time as they left the stairwell heading into the third floor.

"They're supposed to be permanent, yes." Hermione beamed. "But nothing lasts forever, not really. Every few centuries, every permanent charm must be redone, especially if the original caster has been dead for a long time. Hogwarts charms last longer though, something about all the magic in the air. So fascinating, isn't it?"

She looked at Robert expectantly. The boy nodded automatically, stopping as they came to a door next to a tapestry of a young, pretty witch swimming in a big lake. Hermione took it upon herself to open the large door with her free hand, ushering the two in. Inside there were several empty study tables and chairs, along with a few small windows which would probably offer decent spattering of light when it was daytime. A large chandelier suspended above the center of the room filled the place up with a warm, yellow glow in the meantime

"So, um…" Ron began as they took their seats near one of the room's corners. "Who actually is this uh, Flamel bloke?"

"He's an alchemist." Hermione supplied without skipping a beat. "One of the most renowned in the world, most famous for his invention of the philosopher's stone, an item capable of turning objects into gold and producing the elixir of life."

"Whoa, cool." Ron said, going a bit bug-eyed. "He sounds way cooler than anybody we've read about in History of Magic."

"Even cooler than goblin wars of the fourteenth century?" Robert laughed. The other two first years began to giggle at his words, even the ever-so studious Hermione.

"You know, I would _never_ disrespect a teacher…" She whispered. "But it is odd that we only study goblin wars. Hopefully in a few months we'll move onto something a little more interesting."

(An older, teenage Hermione Granger would laugh despairingly at her own youthful naivete when she remembered these words in a few years' time.)

"So… why did you choose to read up on Nicolas Flamel, of all people?" Robert asked her. "He's not on any of our reading lists."

"Well, um…" Hermione trailed off, nervous energy obvious even to Ron, who leaned forward in his chair for her answer. "I just thought… well, it's not the sort of thing I should be saying to just anyone…"

"But we're friends, right?" Ron piped up, his bottom lip jutting out in a very Ron-like pout. "You can tell us. You know, you're all right, Hermione. I don't know about all this nerdy stuff, but…"

The boy shrugged, pointing to the large book Hermione had in front of her. "You're a loads better teacher than Quirrell. I actually understand this stuff when you say it."

"_Really?"_ Hermione gasped, a disbelieving expression taking over her face. "So, we're… friends?"

"Uh, yeah? S-Sure?" Ron's pitch rose an octave, uncertainty crossing his demeanor as he realised the weight of the words.

"Yeah, of course you're our friend, Hermione." Robert chimed in. Hermione turned to look at him, brown eyes looking suddenly quite wet. She blinked furiously, wiping her eyes with a sleeve.

"Okay!" She choked out. "I guess I can tell you two. Promise not to tell anybody else?"

At the boy's eager nods, she began.

"It all started when that troll broke in, on Halloween. You two were probably in the Great Hall with everybody else, but I was coming back from this study room. I had lost track of time reading ahead on our transfiguration textbook, so I didn't know there was any troll."

Ron gasped.

"Merlin! Did you fight it?" He asked eagerly.

"No!" Hermione gasped incredulously. "I never saw the troll. _But, _I was crossing the corridor back to the staircases, where I saw someone walking down the _forbidden corridor."_

Robert's eyebrows rose. "Who were they? A student?" He asked. He met her eye as he spoke, and eagerness to tell her tale replaced the last remnants of her reluctance, Hermione drinking in every last syllable of his question as if desperate for the attention.

"They weren't a student. But at first, I thought they were. I… followed them." She said, a bit sheepishly.

"Into the forbidden corridor? Where Headmaster Dumbledore said you'd die a horrible death if you went in?" Ron's mouth practically fell to the floor.

"Yes. Students aren't allowed to enter, so I tried to catch up to them, so I could tell them they'd get into trouble!" Hermione, in a surprising display of self-awareness, blushed a little at her words. Ron grumbled something akin to an _"of course..."_ under his breath but said nothing more.

"What if they were in Gryffindor house, Ron? We'd lose so many house points if they were caught!" Hermione defended.

"What happened next?" Robert asked, eager to hear the rest of the story.

"I realised pretty quickly that they weren't a student. They were too tall, and they weren't dressed in our robes. But just as I realised that, I wondered _why_ they were there, and I decided to keep following them."

"Geez, you're mental." Ron interrupted again. Hermione kept on speaking, ignoring him.

"They opened a door to a room, where I heard a really loud growl come out. Then I decided to run away before the person found me. They didn't look like they wanted to be seen."

"Do you have any idea who it was?" Robert asked. "A teacher?"

Hermione only shrugged before continuing.

"A few days later, at nighttime before curfew, I went down to the door again to see what was inside."

"You _what?"_ Robert exclaimed, mouth dropping for a second time. "Why would you do that?"

"I just wanted to know what was inside!" Hermione exclaimed. "And when I peeked, I saw a _huge_ dog, with three heads! It was the size of a teenage dragon! Well, around the size, from what I've read of them..."

"Merlin! You've got to be pulling our legs." Ron scoffed.

"No, really! The next day I asked Professor Kettleburn, the care of magical creatures professor, about three-headed dogs. But he kept avoiding the question. He ended up assuming that I just wanted to take magical creatures class two years early and that's why I was talking to him I think, luckily."

"And have you done that before?" Robert asked knowingly. "Tried to get professors to let you into their classes with third years?"

Hermione froze, biting her lip shyly.

"Never mind that." She said. "Naturally, my next thought was to talk to the gatekeeper, Hagrid. He's always talking about some big magical creature or another, so I thought I'd try and ask him about it. I just wanted to know _why_ there was a big three-headed dog in Hogwarts!"

"What's this got to do with Flamel and the philosopher's stone?" Ron asked, folding his arms.

"That's coming next, Ronald!" Hermione almost-shouted. "I spoke to Hagrid, and he got really defensive, and started talking about the third floor corridor having something in it that concerned only Albus Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel. And what's Flamel most famous for?"

"The stone." Robert finished for her. He thought about Hermione's story, trying to recall what his mother had said about the man. She had said he was most famous for the invention of the philosopher's stone, but mostly only spoke about the unimportant bits of his life. Flamel's cats, what he and his wife had been up to during their trip to the Alps, little stories about their great-great-great-great granddaughters...

"I think the stone is in the castle." Hermione declared. "For some reason. And it's being guarded by that three-headed dog."

"That's bloody mental, that is." Ron gasped.

"And that person you saw going in…" Robert trailed off uncertainly.

"I have no idea." Hermione finished. "Maybe somebody from the ministry, or even Flamel himself, checking on it? Feeding the dog? It's got to be fed some time, right?"

"But if all this is true," Robert began. "Why is the stone here? Do you reckon Dumbledore is studying it, or maybe it's under safekeeping?"

Ron huffed. "Honestly, I still can't get my head around this dog. Are you _sure_ it was real?" The other two students ignored him.

"You don't suppose…" Robert turned to Hermione, who was biting her lip in thought.

"...that that person you saw wasn't trying to do something bad with it? Like steal it? When the troll was loose?" Robert said.

"Who here would want to steal it that would know about it?" Hermione frowned.

"One of the professors?" Robert supplied. "Maybe?"

The girl took in a sharp intake of breath. "A _teacher?_ No way! They would never steal something from Professor Dumbledore!"

Robert wracked his brain, one hand brushing through thick, messy hair. He couldn't imagine Professor McGonagall doing something like that. Professor Sprout seemed equally unlikely. Flitwick was a really good duelist and would surely be able to get through a three-headed dog, but Hermione would have surely recognised the man for his stature had he been the one she had seen. Quirrell was far too cowardly to do much of anything, and Snape…

"Hey, do you think Snape would try and get the philosopher's stone, if he could?" He pondered aloud to the other two.

"Oh yeah, he totally would." Ron huffed. "Always saying our potions are bad and being mean to Sally-Anne in every class. Not to mention how he always gives extra house points to that jerk _Malfoy-"_

"He wouldn't do it!" Hermione butt in. "There's no way! Sure, he's harsh on Gryffindor, but Professor Snape wouldn't steal it!"

"Sure." Robert said dubiously. "Look Hermione, it's none of our business, anyway. You'd probably get in loads of trouble if anybody found out that you were looking into this stuff."

"I know… but…"

"Yeah, maybe you're right Rob." Ron uttered, stretching his arms over his head with a yawn. "Anyways, I think I'll be off now, wanna verse Dean and Seamus in that snap game."

"Okay!" Hermione said, a bit confused by the sudden change in attitude as the boy stood up. "It was great talking with you. Remember what I said: don't tell _anyone."_

"Yeah, yeah." Ron nodded, standing up and turning to leave. "Hey Rob, wanna play chess again after snap? We still have time before dinner."

Robert's gaze shifted back and forth between the two. Ron, who looked at him hopefully, and Hermione, whose eyes had shifted back to the book, expecting him to leave.

"Actually, I might just stay here a while longer. Sorry Ron." He said.

Hermione's head whipped up in surprise as Ron shrugged and turned on his heels. The door had closed behind him before Rob and Hermione exchanged words again.

"You don't want to hang out with… Ron?" Hermione questioned, head turning to the side.

"Nah, he'll be fine." Rob said. "Any other cool wizards in there that we should know about? Maybe somebody has a magic cup hiding in the giant squid?"

Hermione giggled.

"Wouldn't that just be the best?" She smiled, flipping the pages of the book. "But… I think the most interesting one was Flamel. They only have older famous wizards and witches in here. Nobody like Dumbledore, or your mother."

Hermione paused as she said those words, looking across the table at him nervously as if regretting them.

"It's okay." Rob said. "Merlin, I had so many people asking me about her when Hogwarts started, it's only fair you get to if you want as well."

"Is it true she defeated… _You-Know-Who?"_ Hermione whispered, a funny expression adorned on her face. "Truthfully, I… haven't had a very good time since I got here. Ever since Sally-Anne and Fay stopped talking to me I've been on my own."

"That was dumb of them." Rob said, leaning back in his chair. "You're interesting, and maybe you could've helped Sally-Anne in potions class. Their loss."

Hermione bit her lip and blushed, eyes back on the old tome. "...One day, one of the older Slytherin students, I don't know who, whispered a funny word at me as I walked past him in the hallway."

She paused there, a hand coming up to scratch at her arm absently. "I asked Professor McGonagall about it. She was the teacher who came to my house to give me my Hogwarts letter. She was _so_ angry, and kept asking me who the student was, but I forgot his face."

Robert felt a red wave of anger sweep through his body as he pictured the members of the house of serpents in his mind. Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Parkinson… they were all bad.

"Professor McGonagall explained to me everything about wizarding blood status that day." Hermione finished forlornly. "I'm sorry if it bothers you it's just… when I tried to read up on famous muggleborn women, I saw Lily Potter and I realised that's _your_ mum…"

"She doesn't ever talk about the You-Know-Who stuff." Robert said. "I think it just makes her sad. We lost my dad and my brother too, you know."

"Yes. Right. I'm sorry." Hermione frowned, looking properly regretful.

"Plus," Robert went on. "That's not all my mother is known for. If you want, I can put a letter to her from you in next time I write to her? If you wanted to ask her about like, muggleborn girl stuff?"

Hermione's eyes widened disbelievingly.

"You can ask her whatever you want." Robert said. "You can seal it too, if you don't want me to see."

"Oh, really? Oh my gosh thank you so much, Rob! Do you really mean it? I have so many things to ask her!" Hermione rambled, bouncing on her chair.

Robert laughed. "Of course!"

There, the two continued speaking for a time, any light coming from the windows having disappeared entirely before they realised it was time for dinner. The pair scrambled upwards, quickly making the trek towards the Great Hall.

"Say Hermione, what happened with you and Sally-Anne? I thought you two were friends." Robert asked as he closed the door behind him.

"We were. But she didn't want to be friends with me anymore. She and Fay think I'm _annoying."_ Hermione said helplessly.

"Oh… I'll talk to Anthony. That's mean. I don't like it when people are mean." Robert frowned, thinking of how nice Sally-Anne was during the opening feast.

"No, don't! Please, it's okay. Really." Hermione pleaded. "I think I really was… annoying."

"You're not annoying. Besides, Anthony-"

"_Please, Robert." _Hermione sent him a meaningful look, and Robert sighed.

"Okay! Okay…"

The only sounds for a moment were the two Gryffindors' shoes hitting the floor, before one of them spoke again.

"So… you're still friends with Anthony Goldstein?" Hermione said as they made their way down a staircase. Robert took a moment to marvel at the expanse of paintings as he followed closely behind her. Most of them weren't paying the two young Gryffindors any attention. There were a few older Hufflepuffs having a heated argument a few staircases down from the pair, and so the paintings that tended to be more curious all had their eyes set on them. Robert watched his favourite painting, a pretty, young girl in a wedding dress, with great interest.

"Of course I am!" Robert answered after he finally processed the girl's words.

"I'm sorry! I just… never see you two together anymore."

"But… he's my best friend. We…" Robert stopped, wracking his brain as he suddenly realised the utter lack of Anthony in his life lately. When was the last time they had spoken to each other? Guilt rose up in his stomach. He'd be so preoccupied with Ron, that he'd let his friendship with the Ravenclaw slip!

"I thought Ronald was your best friend? You two always spend time together." Hermione contributed unhelpfully.

"He is! As well. It's just…" He struggled for the words. "...hard to be best friends with somebody in a different house. I've got Ron, and he's got Michael. But we'll always be best friends."

"Oh, okay. I'm glad to hear that, Robert." Hermione nodded. They had left the staircases and approached the great hall, where it looked like the majority of the school were already seated and eating. Hermione still had the book held in both hands, but she didn't look bothered at all by the prospect of having to carry it all the way back up to Gryffindor tower after meal time.

"Hey, call me Rob, yeah? It's kinda close to Ron, but I like it better." The boy said.

"Okay, Rob." Hermione grinned. "Yes, you two are awfully similar, aren't you?"

"Not really. For starters, he kicks my arse in wizard's chess. Wanna watch after dinner?" Rob asked as he took a seat at the red and gold table next to Ron, who said something that sounded vaguely like a _"hello"_ through a mouthful of sausage.

"Oh, yes please!" Hermione chirped, taking a seat at Ron's opposite side. And there the three students ate, none even noticing the absence of their headmaster at the teacher's table.

* * *

Sorry this chapter is a bit late. I'm kinda struggling what with uni at the moment. :/


	14. Chapter 14

He was so close, now. Closer than he had ever been before. He could almost taste the anticipation in the air, every nerve struck alight with excitement. _i would retrieve it at last,_ he thought gleefully,_ and take back every ounce of power that had been taken from me!_

"No, _please."_ The squib pleaded. "Please, not Mrs Norris. Please, let me help her!"

The man let out a pitiful sob, struggling in vain to break free of his bonds. A few feet in front of him lie the animal Quirrell had taken, a large gash across its side and blood slowly draining from its quivering body. The cat made annoying, pained noises as its master wept.

"You know what I need." The Dark Lord spoke, eyes glinting now that he was finally given a chance to see with them. "The stone can cure all ailments. It is too bad that your dear Mrs Norris won't last much longer if we cannot produce the elixir of life."

Filch let out a little garbled noise, going lax on his restraints and staring into the Mirror of Erised at last. Only the sounds of the disgusting creature on the floor made any noise for a moment, before a queer expression crossed the squib's face.

"I-I think… I think it's right here." He attempted to motion downwards towards his pocket, looking up at Voldemort's face before flinching and turning away. "It's in my pocket."

Immediately, the bonds restraining the man disappeared, and he fell to the floor with a surprised noise. Quirrell turned back around to bend over and leaf through the squib's pockets, and Voldemort saw only the walls and ceiling of the dark room for a moment as his servant searched.

"It's here!" Quirrell gasped. "Master it's here, he has it!"

"Excellent." Voldemort smirked, feeling the energy the stone possessed through his bond with the servant, watching him marvel at the red jewel through the reflection on the large mirror in front of him.

He had done it. For months he spent his time as a lowly parasite, right under Dumbledore's nose! He'd had to put up with the day-to-day, mind numbing nonsense of being attached to who was perhaps the most pathetic of all his subjects to date. And now he had it, the very object Dumbledore had sworn to protect, the one that would make him whole again!

When the crony old wizard had left the castle wards, he could hardly believe his luck. It was lucky too, that his servant had happened upon the squib and his pet as well. Such a shame Quirrell's life would not last much longer. Though a weak wizard overall, it would have been well to have had someone as loyal as him on hand in the future.

"But I do not understand, Master." Quirrell remarked as he stood, captivated by the stone. "I thought that the mirror would not give away its possession if the person wished to use it."

"Sacrifices for love are a helpful loophole." Voldemort only said. "Do you have it?"

Filch only sobbed as Quirrell enlarged the portable brewing kit.

"Master, are you sure we will have enough time?" Quirrell said. "Dumbledore-"

"Will be gone for some time yet." Voldemort grinned voraciously. "The fool thinks a _ministry party_ more important than its protection. We need to grant the squib's wish, we do not want to risk angering the mirror."

"Yes my Lord, of course." Quirrell responded.

"Please, hurry! She's bleeding!" Filch babbled.

"Silence!" Voldemort boomed. The man was sufficiently frightened after that to keep quiet for some time, shaking like a leaf on the floor. He'd inched towards the cat, petting it softly as it continued making those irritating noises from its panting body. Voldemort wished for nothing more than to silence the thing, but the mirror held a magic older than even he could properly understand. He had waited ten years for this, he had to be careful.

In the meantime, his servant had fired up the cauldron, slipping in the few ingredients needed to produce what they wanted. He slipped the stone inside, Voldemort closed his eyes to see the liquid turn a pale gold through Quirrell's vision. It was ready.

Quirrell quickly took out a few vials, filling them up in haste before scooping the stone back out again. He vanished the rest of the liquid and shrank the set once more, holding it up in his fist as he approached the cat.

Without care, Quirrell poured the liquid down onto the cat's open wound. Quickly, the tissue repaired itself, gold flecks rising up as the muscles and skin moved back in place. Within a minute the cat even stumbled back up onto its feet again, wobbly from the lack of blood in its veins.

"Amazing little potion, isn't it?" Voldemort said smugly. "One that can cure all ills. Diseases, injuries, disfigurements. Even extend one's lifespan indefinitely. Interesting that _good_ wizards like Dumbledore and Flamel would seek to conceal it from the people's grasp. So many sick and dying wizards and muggles alike all over the world, and not one _drop_ would they ever deign to share."

The Dark Lord would never share it either. He felt positively euphoric, now that he had bested the old man at last. The squib watched as Mrs Norris took her first tentative steps, leaving red paw prints of her own blood in her wake as she began hissing at Quirrell.

"Kill him." Voldemort ordered.

Quirrell kicked the cat out of his way as it attempted to attack them, fangs outstretched as green light filled the room.

"_Careful! _We cannot risk killing the creature!" Voldemort roared. "The bloody fool traded his life for that thing. I will not risk a curse from that wretched mirror!"

"Yes, my Lord! I am sorry!" Quirrell gasped as Voldemort's anger made waves of pain travel through his skull.

The wizard pocketed the glowing golden phials, exiting the room murmuring a few more questions for his Lord as they made their way out of the castle at last. Argus Filch's body slumped onto the floor in the room they left behind, murky eyes eternally captured in an expression of fear.

The world and everything in it grew hazy. Altair's stomach flipped, and the feeling as if he was being tugged in several different directions at once made his head spin. He reached out, clutching something at his side in confusion. It was soft, but he didn't know what it was. Wasn't he just with Quirrell, and Filch and his cat? Yes. He was finally going to be free. Back to his former strength.

There was a castle, shrinking in the distance as he walked away from it, step by step. The chill of an early winter snow was freezing his fingertips. But whose fingers were they? He was pretty sure his were right here, on this soft, warm thing. When he was far enough, outside of the anti-apparition wards, Quirrell took one last glance at the castle before disapparating.

Everything went foggy again. He could hear somebody talking, but their voice sounded muffled. Somebody laughed. Was it him? Was he laughing?

He was in a graveyard. He had never seen it before, but he had. Of course he had seen it before. His filthy muggle father was buried here.

"A-And the bone of the father." Quirrell stuttered, seemingly for real this time, as his father's bone fell into the cauldron.

"Thank you, Quirrell. You have been a most loyal servant of the Dark Lord." He smiled, as Quirrell uncapped the phial and emptied the elixir into the large cauldron over the fire as well. It was finally finished. He would be whole once more.

"My Lord?" Quirrell's voice went high at the end, questioning at last. "Are you sure I will be… okay?"

Voldemort laughed, before he closed his eyes, looking through the man's own pair once more. He looked down at his cold hands, clenching and unclenching a fist.

"My Lord!" Quirrell cried out as he watched his own hand move against his will. "What is this? What is happening?"

"It is a shame that it must come to this, truly." Voldemort said, a simpering tone not absent from his voice. "But I must occupy a body if I am to return to my former strength. And as there is no other living vessel of one of my horcruxes…"

Quirrell began to cry pathetically, begging Voldemort to no avail as his hand unwillingly scooped up a cup of the potion. Choking, guttural noises broke the silence as Voldemort forced him to _drink._

The man's throat eventually eased up, the Dark Lord's sheer willpower forcing him to swallow the liquid. The cup dropped to the side, and Voldemort felt a hot, painful surge lash out from inside Quirrell's body.

The pain went on. But he _endured._ Quirrell had doubled over from the sheer agony of the change, so when Voldemort finally came to, the grass and the earth was all that was in his vision.

Slowly, he lifted his hands up. They were Quirrell's hands, but now he knew no ounce of the man remained, soul torn up into shreds. That was the price of playing with soul magic. A price Lord Voldemort could not incur onto himself if he was to change the world to suit his vision. The wizard was weak-willed at his core. Voldemort did not feel anything as the final pieces of Quirrell's soul crumbled into dust in the air other than a hope to find a more competent replacement.

The Dark Lord stood, alone in the graveyard. He closed his eyes, breathing in deeply several times as he felt his magic settle properly in his body. It took a few moments before he realised something was… wrong. Strange.

He lifted his arms, pushing the left sleeve of his robe back. He watched as the dark mark filled up with grey ink, signalling his return. While the pigment returned to Quirrell's skin, it didn't grow back into the darkest black colour that he had grown used to on his servant's skin.

_I am not complete._ He thought furiously. _There is something missing. I need… more…_

Quickly, he took out Quirrell's wand, pressing it up to the dark mark and calling his closest followers to his side.

_How could it not have worked? _He thought deliriously. _It was supposed to have worked! The philosophers stone… it should have returned me to my full power until I find a more permanent solution!_

Why was he so weak? He flexed his fingers, feeling the magic in his bones. The body was surely his now, the eyes he saw out of and the mouth that commanded his voice now was the only pair on his body, thankfully on the front of his face. He briefly wondered if he still looked like Quirrell, too.

_It doesn't matter._ He thought angrily. _Where is my magic? Why am I so weak?_

A sharp _crack_ erupted in the empty graveyard, followed shortly by several more. There, kneeling before him were what remained of his inner circle.

Crabbe sat there most precariously, mask on sloppily in his haste to return to his master's side. Doubtlessly he was in the middle of some dinner, or perhaps drinking. Goyle looked slightly more composed, but still shook slightly as if in fear.

_Good._

Avery and McNair knelt much more regally, proper posture unchanged over the years, both looking as if no time had passed at all.

And then there was Lucius.

Obvious by his long, blond hair, Lucius Malfoy knelt before him. His mask covered his expression, but Voldemort could almost _feel_ the shock radiating off of him. The Dark Lord took a few steps forward. The death eaters lifted their gazes as he approached, perhaps only now noticing that their Lord wore the Hogwarts professor's body like a suit. They said nothing, for there was no mistaking their Lord when they arrived. His power made the air buzz with electricity, despite its weakened state.

Voldemort wanted to punish them all. He felt a cold fury, as if his own magic was crackling in the air to make the climate even colder than the December winter. It would have been, if more than a sliver of it was available to him. He wanted all of them to _hurt_ like he had in the time they had _forgotten _him.

_They left me to rot!_

But he did not. Instead, he approached Lucius. His most trusted. The man was selfish and cowardly at his core, but he had power in his own right. Power that Voldemort needed if he was to find the one person he so desperately desired.

"Stand." He said. Lucius rose slowly, head respectfully turned down.

The man opened his mouth to speak, but Voldemort cut him off, having no need or want for insincere platitudes.

"Your Lord has returned to you all at last." Voldemort began. "And with the help of _none_ of you, I might add."

The air was stifling, each of the death eaters at full alert, rightfully terrified of the Dark Lord's wrath.

"My Lord, I-" Goyle began.

"_Silence!"_ Voldemort barked, and the man went silent. Voldemort recognised his voice as no different from the now-dead Quirrell, and it irked him as he continued speaking. _I must change it as well, somehow._

"I require something of you, Lucius. Let it be the start of your repentance for your years of neglect."

"Of course, my Lord. Whatever it is you ask of me." Lucius said eagerly, bowing on the spot once more.

"Good." Voldemort smirked. "This is only the beginning. With what you can provide me, I expect to be at full power very soon."

"What is it you require, my Lord? My family has leverage within multiple ministries, my collection of magical artifacts has also grown considerably in the time-"

"I require _someone."_ Voldemort said, a predatory smile taking over his face in a way that he knew would unsettle even the most battle-worn auror, despite his new face. "Someone very important that you will gain access to very shortly."

It was with those words, he felt himself tumble, tumble, _tumble…_

Altair awoke to a dark, empty room. His eyes opened in a panic and he panted for breath, feeling like his entire body had been drenched with sweat and his heart ripped out of his chest. The floorboards of the villa were hard on his back, and he dimly registered that he had fallen onto the floor. He loosened his grip on the pillow by his side as his mind raced. For the first time in his eleven years, an explosion of pain erupted from his forehead, making the boy cry out in shock as it throbbed.

* * *

"Bethany says your friend's brothers got detention for trying to steal a toilet lid from the girls bathroom."

Robert blinked several times as his eyes left the fireplace, turning to regard the older girl beside him. Marigold Wagner sat on the other side of the sofa, eyes narrowed distrustfully towards him. Their parents had only both moved to the kitchen a minute prior, leaving the two Hogwarts students alone in the cosy Potter cottage living room. The humble fire crackled softly in the room, it and the sounds of the cliche muggle Christmas movie on the television their only other company.

"Fred and George? That sounds like them." Robert nodded, more to himself than to the girl, wondering what the mischievous Weasley twins could be up to at that moment. He wondered whether their father had really bought them the alchemy kit they had so boldly boasted that they had convinced him to get. Nobody in the Gryffindor common room had been convinced they wanted to conduct any proper, academic experiments with the kit as they spoke about it that night before Christmas break, some of the more mild-mannered lions giving the prank-loving pair shifty glances.

"They're _creeps."_ The Ravenclaw girl remarked sullenly.

"Hey, no they're not! They're just… they just like pranks, is all."

The girl continued to glare at him, crossing her arms and sniffling. "You know, I couldn't even tell the difference between you and that Weasley boy for months. You both look the same, and your names are basically the same, too."

Robert only shrugged. He'd already heard such things before. Draco Malfoy crossed his mind, and his mouth involuntarily twisted into a frown as he thought of that mean boy.

"Mary, stop being rude." A man's voice ordered, as two figures entered the room. Alex Wagner's tall, lanky frame appeared in the corner of Robert's eye as he and Robert's mother sat back down on the second sofa.

"Why were you two in the kitchen?" Robert questioned.

"They wanted to make out." Marigold answered simply. The two adults' eyes widened at her words, Alex's face going as red as a beet.

"Really?" Robert asked, question directed more towards Marigold than the two adults in question. "I didn't know adults did that."

"Rob dear, could you turn off the television? I think it's time for presents." Lily said in a rush as Alex shot his daughter a glare. The man's demeanour was too passive for it to have much of an effect on Marigold though, it seemed. The girl only snorted.

"Yes, good idea!" Alex nodded, eager for the change in topic as Rob absently pressed the button on the remote beside him.

"And then we can get into that pudding. I've been looking forward to it all day!" His mum remarked, walking up to the tree in the corner of the room. They had put it up only a few days prior. _"I couldn't break tradition."_ His mother had said. _"We always put the tree up together. You and me,"_ The haphazardly placed lights twinkled red and gold, the trinkets hanging off its leaves dancing happily to a tune only they could hear.

His mother reached down to pick up the first gift, but soon froze as one of the trinkets on the bottom latched onto it with its tiny hands.

"It's not yours." Lily stated to the trinket, a tiny elf wearing red robes. The trinket let out a silent noise of discontent, hugging onto the side of the wrapped box with all its might. His mother sighed, but she seemed amused as she tried to talk the trinket down. Robert regarded Marigold once more. She was absent-mindedly pulling her fingers through her hair, soft brown locks exhibiting a doubtlessly extensive hair care regimen. Robert smirked as a thought suddenly occurred to him.

"I heard from Fred that you like that chaser from Hufflepuff. Minho Kim, wasn't it?" Marigold's hands froze in her hair as her eyes widened.

"What? No I don't! Fred Weasley doesn't know anything about me!" She shrilled, eyes glaring daggers into the younger boy. Robert only grinned, beyond delighted to have gotten a rise out of the girl.

"I heard that he heard you _singing his name_ when you were in the grounds near the quidditch pitch."

"_I DID NOT! HOW DARE YOU-"_

"_Enough!"_ Alex shouted. The two bickering children froze, shocked by the normally meek man's display.

"Rob, that was very rude, and unlike you." His mother reprimanded. She looked at him with an air of disappointment, a look that always made Robert's emotions instantly fall into turmoil.

"She started it!" He pointed a finger at the Ravenclaw, whose lips were snarling at him furiously.

"Well I'm finishing it. Unless you two didn't want presents?" Lily said sternly.

"No, please-"

"We'll be good!"

Lily sighed. "Okay. Let's start then. Here you go Robert."

She held up the gift she had successfully taken from the possessive elf trinket, placing it onto his lap. It was box shaped, and the wrapping paper was filled with smiling Santas and reindeer. One of the Santas waved at him enthusiastically, the charmed character seemingly happy to the point of lunacy. He gently tore the paper open, revealing a plain, brown box that hinted none of its contents. There was movement in the corner of his eye as Lily passed around a few more gifts, though she glanced at him several times expectantly as he opened the box.

"A-Are these really…" The boy trailed off as he stared at the colourful array of objects inside.

"They're muggle made. For you to start with. If you want, you can work your way up to magical ones later." His mother said.

Inside was a paint and brush set, with a sizeable collection of colours. The possibilities were endless, the boy thought as he stared at the paints. How many combinations he could do, how many colours he could mix. He thought about the fat lady that guarded that Gryffindor common room. He thought of the hapless knight that explored all the paintings in Hogwarts, of all the portraits and scenes he had witnessed in the school. One day, maybe he really could add to them!

"Thanks Mum." He said quietly, shifting through the contents curiously.

"I'm glad you like them, dear. Here, open the one from Alex." Another, smaller gift was pressed into his hands, and he tore open the wrapping paper excitedly. Inside was a book filled with paintings of natural landscapes, filled with trees and flowers. Flipping through its pages revealed it to be a painting guide.

"I hope you like it." Alex said nervously.

"I do. Thank you!" Robert grinned.

"Oh Morgana! This is… actually kind of cool, I guess…" Marigold trailed off, utterly enraptured with her gift. It was a box filled with several girly makeup things, none of which Robert recognised.

"Tell Lily thank you." Alex said, to which Marigold absently muttered the words back as she inspected each item with reverence. Robert even caught Alex lean in closer to his mother to whisper something that sounded very close to _oh my god thank you_.

Lily handed Robert another gift, wrapped up with some over-the-top red wrapping paper littered with candy canes.

"Aunt Petunia and Dudley send their love." Lily smiled.

Robert tore up the wrapping paper with fervour, to reveal a box with a picture of some unfamiliar device that reminded him somewhat of a television remote with a screen.

"A game boy!" Lily remarked with some confusion. "Looks like you can do some kinds of muggle activities on it."

Marigold giggled at her words, before turning to regard the thing in Robert's lap. "That thing's really popular with weird kids like you. So perfect."

"I wish they were here." Robert pouted, pointedly ignoring the older girl's jab. "And Sirius, too."

"Yes, me too." Lily sighed. "But Petunia has wanted to live in France since we were little kids, the move took a lot out of them. And Sirius is doing something very important for Dumbledore right now."

"Is everything alright?" Alex asked, touching her arm affectionately.

"It's as alright as it can be." Lily said. "Oh by the way Marigold, the new copy of _Witch Weekly_ should be on the table there."

The woman pointed to a table on the other side of the room, the one the Potter's often left utterly cluttered with all things delivered by owl. Several layers of opened letters and magazines piled on top of it.

"Awesome! I _love_ _Witch Weekly!"_ Robert rolled his eyes as she launched herself up from the sofa, gifts temporarily forgotten, to find the magazine. She was such a typical _girl!_

"In the end, this didn't go as badly as I was expecting." Robert heard Alex joke softly to his mother as Marigold dug through the pile of papers on the table. "Marigold's going through this phase right now where she hates everybody younger than her. Actually now I think of it, I think she hates everybody older than her too."

"She'll come around." Lily said wryly, smiling. "Teenagers can be a lot."

"You'll be good with Robert." Alex smiled back. The two looked at each other like older students Robert had seen standing underneath the mistletoe at Hogwarts. So _gross._ Robert would never! Robert's expression scrunched up in disgust.

"He's a good kid. When he's not staring me down from across the room like he wants to swap out all of my shampoo with hair dye, or something." Alex finished, breaking eye contact with Lily to look directly at Robert. The boy looked back down at the paint set on his lap sheepishly.

"I found it." Marigold trilled, sitting down on the sofa once more, the new glossy cover of the magazine in her hands. "Oh and I found this letter too!"

The girl held up a pale white envelope. "It's muggle, I'm pretty sure. It was hidden between two other envelopes and you didn't open it yet, so I thought maybe you missed it."

"Thank you, Mary." Lily said curtly, taking the envelope quickly as the girl began to read the first page of her magazine.

"I'm gonna go put this in my room." Robert said, holding up the gifts he had received. Ron and their dorm mates had exchanged gifts before Christmas, and he'd already unwrapped a gift box of various prank stuff from Anthony earlier that day, so adding what he had received to the pile already on the end of his bed was all he could think of at that moment. Christmas was _great._

At his mother's nod, he launched up, walking upstairs to his open bedroom door. He had carefully placed the gifts next to his pillow before a soft knock on the door broke his thoughts.

"Hey buddy, mind if we have a little talk? Won't be a moment?" Alex smiled awkwardly, taking a few steps into the room.

"Uh… okay." Robert said with some confusion, sitting down on a present-less spot on his bed.

"Okay! Great. Awesome." Alex paused, wringing his hands as he watched the boy. "Look, I just want to let you know that I really do care a great deal about your mum. We haven't been seeing each other an awful long time yet, but I really do care a lot for her. I have no ill intentions."

"Uhm… okay." Robert said again slowly, unsure of what to say.

"I'm alright with you… _dating,"_ he made a funny face despite himself, "Mum, if that's what you mean. Marigold sucks, but you're nice."

"She'll grow on you, that one." Alex laughed, wringing a hand through his hair.

"Listen, kid." He said, reaching down and putting a soft hand on Robert's shoulder. "I have no intention of replacing your dad. He was a great man."

"Yeah. Yeah, I get it." Robert said offhandedly, shrugging.

"...And I know that I'll never _be_ your dad-"

"Honestly I get it. Please, I just remembered the pudding and I wanna eat it."

Alex froze for a second, before moving his hand to Robert's mop of hair and tousling it roughly, extorting giggles from the boy as he attempted to swat him away.

It was in higher spirits that they both returned back down the stairs and into the living room, where Marigold had not moved an inch on the sofa and Lily stood, still reading the letter. Robert paused as he noticed his mother looked a bit different than normal, worry arising as he realised it was because she had turned several shades whiter in the time the two had taken to talk privately.

"Lily, are you alright? What's happened?" Alex asked, also quickly catching onto the woman's mood change. The man crossed the room within seconds, gently reaching down in attempt to hold her hand, where the letter was still in her shaky grasp.

Lily flinched, furiously folding the letter back into the envelope and stuffing it into the pocket of her muggle trousers, refusing to take his hand. She sent them a tight-lipped smile.

"It's okay, it's just more trouble with the Ministry." She said. Robert looked down at the indent in her pocket with doubt. _Didn't Marigold say it was a muggle envelope?_

"Can we have dessert now?" Marigold asked expressionlessly, face still honed in on the _Witch Weekly_ magazine.

"Yes, you three all go ahead." Lily nodded, taking a few steps back towards the staircase.

"You don't want any, Mum?" Robert asked.

"No, I'm a little tired now. I think I'll just… be off to bed now…" Lily gave him a final, strained smile before turning away.

"Lily, wait…" Alex began, but Lily had already moved past him to ascend up the staircase to the bedrooms. Alex looked back and forth between the two children and the space where Lily had disappeared.

"I'll be off to bed too." He said. "Save some of the pudding for us. Mary, don't forget to put it in the fridge, yeah?"

Marigold hummed. Robert watched the man's retreating back, wondering what it was that had made his mother so upset. He launched himself back down on the sofa for a few minutes in confused silence before he felt a sharp pain at his knee.

"Hey! You kicked me!" He accused the girl in front of him, who only scoffed in response.

"Here, I got you pudding. And ice cream, too." She deposited the dessert on his lap before grasping for the television remote once more.

"Merry Christmas, ginger." She said softly, with the drone of some late-night game show breaking the silence that had filled the cottage once more.


	15. Chapter 15

"And don't forget to leave your essays on my table for grading. Class dismissed."

The sound of chairs squeaking filled the silence of the classroom as students made their way to the front. The Ravenclaws dropped their scrolls off proudly, smiling at their professor as they left. The Gryffindors… dropped them off somewhat less proudly.

"Oh Merlin," Ron whined, giving Robert a helpless look. "I forgot about this essay until the night before we took the train back. You don't think it's obvious, do you?"

Robert look at the mess of scribbles and smudges on his friend's parchment and winced.

"I'm sure it'll be fine." He said anyway, as the pair placed their scrolls on the professor's desk. McGonagall nodded at them as they did, but she had a glint in her eye that gave Robert the feeling that she already knew exactly the quality of essay she was going to get from Ron.

The pair left the transfiguration classroom in the flurry of the other students, eager to make their way to lunch.

"You know… that stuff Granger said…" The words left Ron's mouth as the crowd had thinned some. Robert stopped walking in surprise, instantly thinking back to the events of before the Christmas break.

"What if she's not telling the truth?" The other redhead whispered dramatically. Behind him, some ancient medieval battle dramatically played out on a large tapestry against the castle walls, knights silently sparring with one another across a great field. Robert leaned back against the tapestry, looking around to ensure nobody was within earshot.

"She is, I'm sure she is." He insisted.

"Yeah but…" Ron trailed off again. He scuffed a worn-down shoe onto the stone floor below them as he averted his gaze from Robert. "I don't know. Everyone else says she's strange, even other people in Gryffindor. What if she's just making it all up so you'll spend time with her? You said you were even writing to her over the break and everything."

"Well," Robert began, though he wasn't quite sure what to say. His eyes trailed to the tapestry, where a knight valiantly cried as he slew another man right on top of a cartoonish-looking horse. The knight held his hands up in a brief victory, before returning to the slaughter. A reckless thought came to the first year all of a sudden.

"What if we go and see if she's telling the truth?"

"What? Are you crazy?" Ron gasped, looking around them as if a teacher would appear out of nowhere at any moment. "I'm not gonna get my face bitten off by a giant dog! Or a professor if anyone catches us."

Now that Robert had spoken the words, he couldn't help but be filled with dangerous excitement. A three-headed dog, the likes of which he'd never seen before. It would be… it would be like an _adventure._

"But how else will we know if she's telling the truth? You said it yourself, didn't you?" Robert said. His friend frowned deeply.

"I want to see it," Robert decided. "You don't have to come. I can just tell you about it later. Then you'll believe her, won't you?"

Ron seemed to consider his words, albeit reluctantly. A group of older students turned into the corridor, breaking the two first years out of the moment as they glanced at the group of passers-by.

The day passed by relatively normally after, but not without Ron shooting Robert anxious glances all throughout their other classes.

"What do you think?" Robert asked Hermione as they warmed their hands by the fire in the Gryffindor common room that night.

"If you insist on seeing the dog," Hermione began, "I feel like I should go with you. I know more spells than you, and if you get yourself into trouble, you'll need my help."

Robert perked up at her words, glancing at Ron next to him, who only raised his eyebrows in response. Then the boy huffed and laid his head back against his armchair, and looked for all the world like he had had his homework shredded up by a werewolf.

"I'm coming too." He said.

* * *

The trio had decided to sneak out at midnight, after the prefects finished their rounds and the last few seventh years had finally gone to bed. Hogwarts was much more daunting at night, the shadows in the corridors seemed to move unnaturally, and the castle's creaks made them flinch constantly, terrified that a teacher could turn up at any corner. Robert tried not to regret his choice as he shooed his two friends down the third-floor corridor.

"Come on, there's nobody here!" He whispered, Ron and Hermione at his heels.

"It's here! This door." Hermione stopped them, pointing towards the door in question. They crept up slowly towards it, as if whatever was inside could escape at any minute.

"Oh blimey…" Ron said as Hermione pulled her wand out of her robes.

"You didn't have to come if you didn't want to, Ron," Robert said, watching his friend wince in fear as he looked at the door.

"No! I wanna be here, too. I wanna see if it's real, what you were going on about... but it's just… such a _big_ dog…"

"Quiet! We don't want to bring attention to ourselves." Hermione whispered.

"What are you talking about? We're fine. Dumbledore said Filch had left at the returning feast, hadn't he?" Robert shrugged.

"Mrs Norris is still around," Hermione said warningly. The boys both whipped their heads around as if they were expecting the cat to apparate right behind them at Hermione's words.

"Bit weird that, isn't it?" Ron whispered. "You'd think he'd take her with him, with how they're always around each other." The other two didn't respond, equally stumped.

"_Alohomora,"_ Hermione announced, wand at the ready at the door.

Ever so slowly, Hermione pushed it open. The room was dark, with a lone, dull chandelier at the top of its high ceiling. The candles lit instantly as the door opened, and Robert flinched as he quickly surveyed the room. It was…

It was empty.

"Wait…" Ron said. "Where is it?"

"I don't know…" Hermione spluttered as she opened the door fully, taking a step inside. "It was here before Christmas break. They must've moved it. Look there!"

She pointed to a wooden door on the floor several meters in front of them. "It must lead to where the stone is!"

She launched forward into the room, towards the trapdoor. Robert hissed, but there was no stopping her. The boys entered the room cautiously, and Robert caught himself watching the shadowed corners, waiting for some monster to jump out at any moment. Hermione quickly undid the latch on the trapdoor, pulling it open and setting it down, face scrunching up at every squeak the rusty hinges made.

"Lumos." She said, and light emerged from the end of her wand. Eagerly, she reached down into the door as far as it would go, illuminating whatever was inside.

"Be careful!" Robert said, racing forward to kneel beside her. "What's in there?"

"There's… nothing there, Hermione." Ron said from behind them. "It's just an empty storage cupboard."

Ron was right. Hermione's light revealed the space under the door to be less than a meter deep, and only as wide as the door itself.

"I don't understand!" Hermione said, frustrated. "It _must_ be in here! There must be some magic hiding it, or maybe… maybe they moved it over the Christmas break, or-"

"Yeah, right." Ron interrupted. Robert stood up again and realised that Ron was edging back out of the room, arms crossed and eyes dark. "There's nothing here, Rob."

Rob looked between the two helplessly. "Come on Ron…"

"She has no friends!" Ron exploded, pointing a finger accusingly at Hermione. "She just made this all up, so we'd be friends with her. I bet she made up that part about Hagrid saying anything, too!"

Hermione had flinched back into the floor slightly, and even through the dim lights from above them, Robert could see that her eyes had gotten very wet. "No! No, I'm not lying, I promise! There really was a dog here, and Hagrid _said-"_

"_Whatever."_ Ron huffed, turning to leave. "C'mon, Rob. Let's leave this weirdo alone."

"We could at least look for a little while longer. Maybe we missed something." Robert said, standing frozen in between them.

"No way! I'm not risking any of the teachers catching me here. Not for that liar!" Ron sneered. And with that, the boy turned on his heels and disappeared.

Hermione let out a soft, wet noise, and Rob realised she really was crying now.

"I-I'm sorry…" she stuttered. "I'm not lying… I didn't say anything that wasn't true just to make f-friends…"

"It's okay, Hermione," Rob reassured, frowning. Carefully, he laid an arm around the girl as a few more tears fell down her cheeks.

"You believe me, don't you?" Hermione whimpered.

Robert looked around the room a final time, and back down towards the trapdoor.

"It's okay, really, it is." He said.

"Oh, thank you!" Hermione croaked. "I-I can keep researching the stone. That b-bad person can't get it-"

"You don't have to do that," Robert said. Hermione looked at him, wide eyes uncomprehending. Robert sighed.

"You didn't have to make something up to be friends with us. If you come to Ron tomorrow, I'm sure he'll forgive you. He's a nice person, you'll see."

Slowly, his words dawned on Hermione. However, instead of acceptance, the muggle-born inched away from Robert, pushing his arm away.

"You don't believe me." She said. She sounded… resigned.

"Look at the facts." Robert sighed. "It sounds… crazy, right? Maybe there was a dog here for some reason, maybe not. But there's not one now. And there's definitely no philosopher's stone here. Maybe your imagination just got carried away."

"I understand," Hermione said evenly, but her face betrayed her. She seemed… different all of a sudden. A hand furiously wiped away the tears that had streaked down her face, and she turned to leave.

"I'll make my way back to the common room myself." She said.

"O-Okay." Robert nodded. The boy's frown deepened. For some reason, he felt as if something big had just happened, bigger than he realised.

"Wait, Hermione." He called. "You still… want to be friends, right?"

Hermione paused at the door for only a moment, before disappearing from his view entirely, never saying a word

Robert couldn't help but think this was not the way it was supposed to go. Not at all.

* * *

The Evans family had never been particularly religious when Lily was growing up. For her grandmother's sake, her parents had taken her to be christened, as well as to mass every other year. While they were a family that still had much respect for the joy religion could give others, they always entertained a degree of separation from it itself.

It had made things a lot easier when Lily had received her Hogwarts letter. There were no cries of satanism launched at Professor McGonagall the day Lily turned eleven. Of course, that had changed slightly when Petunia grew jealous, but even her distaste for the wizarding world didn't manifest in proclamations of loyalty to a holy being. No, it was only Lily's grandparents that were the religious type in the family.

Despite this, Lily wondered if there really a god was out there that controlled destiny. Sometimes the way her life unfolded in the most bizarre and unexpected ways. She approached the Italian villa, beyond nervous as she ascended the pathway to the front door. She had pressed the doorbell without a thought, mind struggling to come up with the right words for what she needed to say. The door opened abruptly, a _whoosh_ of wind sending Lily's hair flying backwards as Carla Colombo emerged on the other side.

"M-Ms Potter!" Colombo gasped. The woman looked as if she was in a panic, hair dishevelled and bags under her eyes. Lily glanced behind the woman's shoulder to spot two wizards hovering around in the entrance room, seemingly displeased.

"I'm sorry if I've come at a bad time," Lily said, struggling to keep her voice even. "But this is important."

She shoved the muggle letter into Colombo's hands, which shook slightly as the squib looked at it.

"It's a match!" Lily gasped. "He's… he's truly my son! He must be my Harry!"

"What?" Colombo said, looking perhaps even more aghast than she was moments before. "How is it possible?"

The woman craned her head down to read the paper, eyes skirting across and down the page. She had only just finished reading the brief letter by the time one of the men in the room crossed the floor to speak to her, saying a few words in Italian. Lily jumped aside as the two men both left out the front door, disapparating the moment they left the manor's wards.

"Ms Potter." Colombo said softly. "You should… come in. Yes, come in."

"What's wrong? Where is he? I would like to speak with him. I won't tell him of course, not yet." The words left Lily in a flurry, so desperate was she to say them the moment she opened the letter.

"Ms Potter…"

"He has no idea, it would be quite a shock to his system, so I won't tell him, don't worry. Just let me see him. Speak to him. Please, it's what I've wanted all this time." Lily was barely aware of the words that continued to spew from her mouth, and she clutched the door to the villa somewhat desperately.

Colombo reached forward, hand going to cover Lily's shoulder as she pushed her gently inside. She led Lily to a sitting room and didn't speak again until Lily had taken a seat on a sofa. Colombo sat next to her, hands bunching into fists at her sides. The squib looked beyond guilty, and Lily's heart sank as she registered the expression. Just as she was about to speak again, Colombo opened her mouth.

"I… I'm so sorry. Those men, they work with the ministry. I floo called them immediately after I realised what had happened."

"Realised? Realised what? Merlin, what's wrong?"

"The boy is… gone."

Lily's heart continued to sink. Her chest tightened, as if she had splinched her lungs to outside her body.

"Gone? The ministry's moved him somewhere else?" From Colombo's mood, Lily doubted the words that left her mouth. But she held on, desperate. "I must see him, please! You promised!"

"No, I… I don't know how it happened. My house elf, Peeky, said he woke up sometime very late last night. From some sort of nightmare. Peeky calmed him down. She went back to sleep afterwards, but he was gone by the time she went to serve him breakfast."

"But… but he mustn't be far! Why aren't you looking for him? How could he just _leave?"_

"I'm so sorry, Ms Potter. The villa wards aren't supposed to allow any witch or wizard out if they are a young child. But the boy managed to find a wand that I had kept away from him. Somehow, the wards recognised him as a schooling age wizard and permitted him to leave. The ministry has no idea where he could be. But… I'm sure such a young boy couldn't have gone far on his own. They'll find him."

"This is… this is…" Lily took a deep breath, forcing her lungs back into motion as she stared at the other woman. Colombo looked at her pityingly, and it made a red-hot flash of anger strike through Lily's body.

"He's my _son!"_ Lily yelled. "Don't you know what that means? He doesn't even know it!"

"Perhaps you should sit back down. I know this must be hard for you. Altair-"

"He's not _Altair!"_ Lily growled. Colombo had stood up, placing a hand gingerly around Lily's arm. Lily hadn't even realised she'd arisen out of the sofa in her anger. A million thoughts raced through her mind.

_One day earlier. If she had come one day earlier. If she hadn't been such a coward and came the moment she saw the letter. She'd have her boy back again. Her little boy-_

"I believe you. I believe you, Ms Potter. I'm sure he will be found safe very soon. For the moment, I will send for Peeky for some tea, yes? Don't you worry. He's only a boy, how far could he really get on his own?"


	16. Chapter 16

The stairwell leading up to the divination classroom was quiet, punctuated only loud footsteps and some panting as two students heaved themselves up, floor after floor. The stairwell grew narrower as the tower shrank in size the higher they climbed before they reached a landing that had only an old, wooden ladder leading up to the final floor.

"Do you reckon we're late?" Ron panted as they climbed the ladder to the tower, leading to the classroom of their shared elective.

"I think we're super late," Robert replied despairingly. "I didn't r-realise" -he paused to fill his lungs with much-needed oxygen- "I would take so long to get ready. I'm sorry."

"No, it's all right mate," Ron reassured, giving his friend a concerned once-over as Robert lifted his tired body up off the ladder. "First day of school always sucks."

"I just kept having these weird dreams, they keep me up sometimes," Robert said as they approached the door on the other side of the landing, the pair guessing it had to lead to the classroom. "I started getting them this summer, and they're… yeah, weird."

"Oh, okay. Well, you'll be fine, right?" Ron asked. Robert let out a soft noise of agreement. Ron took a moment to pause there, looking nervously back at his fellow redhead as he grabbed the door handle. "Ready?"

At Robert's stiff nod, he opened the door wide. On the other side was what could only be described, in Robert's view, as someone's old and dusty attic. Their classmates sat in plush red chairs, all in pairs around small circular desks. At the opposite end of the room stood a strangely dressed woman with spectacles that made her eyes appear twice their size.

"As I predicted!" Professor Trelawney announced excitedly. "The classroom lacked two souls. Come in, come in!" The woman beckoned the boys closer, towards the sole empty table right next to her desk.

Robert gave the room a quick survey. The smell of incense lay thick in the air, and the other students in the room shot varying expressions towards the two Gryffindors as they awkwardly stumbled to the front of the room, trying not to hit anyone with their bags in the relatively tight space. To the boy's relief, it appeared that a few more Gryffindors than Slytherins had elected to take divination. Dean and Seamus both waved, and Sally-Anne and Fay both sent small smiles. Parvati and Lavender ignored them entirely. After they reached the front of the classroom, they pulled the chairs back and sat in the comfortable armchairs, looking confusedly at the table in front of them. It had an old tea set, chipped in several places and looking like it had seen better days, and varying types of tea leaves.

"And what are your names, dear boys?" The professor asked. All eyes remained focused on the two late students as they stuttered out responses.

"S-Sorry we were late Professor-"

"I'm Ron Weasley, and-"

"-and I'm Robert Potter. Professor."

The woman hummed dramatically, lifted her arms up towards the class. "Ah, yes, of course you are!" She nodded knowingly. "I, of course, could see with my inner eye, your names. I only asked for the benefit of your fellow students!"

Robert bit his lip at the incredulity of the statement, looking around at the classroom full of students that most certainly had learned the names of all their fellow classmates within the two years previous. He didn't speak, but by the way Ron's eyebrows had ascended halfway up his forehead, he was similarly doubtful.

"Do not fear punishment from me for appearing in this room late." Trelawney continued. "For I could foresee much earlier this morning that you two would be held back. Do not fear. _However,_ it would not do well to be late to divination class past the first day! Such a bad omen isn't it, dear students?"

For a moment, the classroom was silent. After a few seconds, Parvati and Lavender let out a few quiet words of agreement. The professor seemed satisfied with that and continued.

"Today, we shall be reading tea leaves. It is the most basic introduction to opening your _inner eye._ I trust you all bought your textbooks?"

A flurry of action swept the small room, students all reaching into their bags to bring out their thick divination books. The room soon erupted into conversation as students began making the tea, using warming charms to heat up the water in the teapots. Robert was never a big fan of tea, but he choked the beverage down anyway, not wanting to get on the professor's bad side despite her apparent nonchalant attitude about their lateness.

"You know, I heard from Percy that Professor Trelawney is real cooky," Ron whispered to him over his own cup, as the woman made her way to some students on the other side of the room. "He thinks this class is bollocks."

Robert shrugged. "But surely it can't all be like that, right? Dumbledore wouldn't let it be taught here if it wasn't real."

His friend nodded in agreement. Soon, the class had finished the teas, each student quickly rifling through their textbooks to find out the meanings of their partner's leaves. Trelawney went to each table in turn to make her own readings.

"I'm hopeless at this." Ron concluded after several minutes of darting his eyes back and forth between Rob's cup and his textbook. "It just looks like a mess to me."

"Let me share notes on yours, then." Robert suggested, holding up the parchment he'd be scribbling on. "This part here looks like a diamond, or maybe a kite? A diamond could mean money, or a kite could mean a wish could come true. And then there's uh, a circle thing here near the handle. That could either be an apple, so new knowledge coming your way, or the sun, so happiness?"

"Will the apple help me pass this class?" Ron pouted into Robert's cup.

"I see your inner eye is clouded!" Trelawney announced, appearing beside them quite suddenly. Robert almost jumped in his seat to see her standing so close, bent over Ron and trying to catch a glimpse of Robert's tea leaves. "Let me try, for your eye might need some guidance."

"Um. Sure?" Ron said helplessly, passing the cup to the professor. The woman grasped it in both hands, inspecting the leaves from several angles and making several 'umms' and 'ahhs' before she suddenly shouted in alarm, dropping the cup back onto the table with her hands clutched at her chest.

"Oh, my dear, precious boy!" She yelled, big eyes staring at Robert's. Robert stared back in wide-eyed alarm as the class went silent.

"You…" She began, a finger pointed directly at Robert, eyes suddenly overcome with emotion and brimming with tears. "You are not meant to be here!"

Robert flinched back, eyebrows creasing as his mind raced to figure out the meaning of the bizarre woman's accusations. He did not have to think for long, as the professor carried on with vigour.

"You are not supposed to be alive." She whispered darkly. Despite her lower tone, her words doubtlessly carried over to the whole classroom. Even the Slytherins in the corner hadn't reacted, similarly captivated by her words.

"You've changed many things. Things you see now, don't you?" She said. Robert had no idea whether or not he was supposed to answer her words with something. He glanced down at the cup containing his tea leaves. It just looked like… tea leaves. There was no discernible pattern in the cup that he recognised. Even the textbook only spoke about omens of the future, nothing as far as whether or not somebody had the right to _exist._

The woman's words filled him up with a sense of doom. Thankfully, she had nothing else to say to him, only suddenly and abruptly ending the class. At her words telling them to leave, it seemed the spell that had come over the classroom broke, whispers and sideways glances hitting Robert as students began filing out. Blaise Zabini and his cronies all erupted in laughter.

"Wow, Potty. Nice start to the year." Parkinson snorted as the Gryffindor students passed them by at the door. "Already got teachers wishing you were never born. That's got to be an achievement, right Blaisie?"

Robert ignored her, but he saw Ron, Dean and Seamus all glaring at the group as they left ahead of them. Crabbe and Goyle stood on either side of Zabini, both laughing uncontrollably at Parkinson's words. Other than Nott and Malfoy, they were the only Slytherins in the class. But they were still within the inner circle of prats (as Ron would say) in Slytherin house, so Robert didn't look forward to an entire year with them. He spotted Nott and Malfoy, standing up and leaving by themselves from their table in the corner of the room. He hadn't even seen them when he entered the class.

"Well, that was cheerful." Ron remarked as the Gryffindor boys filed down the staircase after leaving down the divination tower ladder.

"She's a bloody nutter," Seamus said. "Imagine sayin' stuff like that. I bet she just made it all up. My mam said divination is all fake, you know?"

"Then why did you take it?" Dean asked as they travelled down, down, down the winding staircase.

"Well, she also said it was an easy _exceeds expectations_, and you wouldn't catch me dead doing arithmancy," Seamus shrugged.

"Hey mate, are you okay?" Ron directed his question towards Robert, noticing the boy's unnaturally pale pallor.

Robert nodded, tight-lipped.

After a few moments, Ron turned his attention back to the other boys, but the way he kept glancing back at Robert made the other boy feel like he had only just dropped the subject for the time being.

"Well, we got transfiguration next. Do you reckon McGonagall will go easy on us first day?" Robert's other dorm mates only laughed uproariously in response, the noise booming through the tower. Their exaggerated reactions to Ron's question made Robert feel a little better, and not quite like his insides were twisting themselves into knots.

The rest of the classes that day passed by in a blur. Each professor emphasised the importance of studying hard in the lead up to OWLS ("but they're literally years away!" Ron had gasped in horror in the middle of charms). Flitwick put them through a rather intensive theoretical charms lesson that had them all nodding off, and Professor Binns' History of Magic lesson after lunch made matters even worse. Their new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Angus Wynne, had them practising jelly-legs jinxes on one another for the entirety of the class, certainly the high of the day. Yet still, before Robert could make heads or tails of much else they were wrapping up on dinner and heading up to the Gryffindor common room.

"Hey Ron, I think I'm just gonna go to bed," Robert said to his friend as they filed into the cosy room. Ron nodded, eyeing a few second-year boys playing a game of exploding snap in the corner.

"Yeah alright, I'll probably come up in an hour or so," Ron said, crossing the floor to speak to their underclassmen.

Robert ascended the stairs to the boys' dorm, mind filled with a strange buzzing that had carried on all day. He changed quickly and climbed into his own red four-poster bed, the same exhaustion that plagued him that morning quickly returning. He hoped for a peaceful night's rest as he shut his eyes.

But that was not to come.

He was drifting, drifting off into sleep. but at the same time, his mind was somewhere else, skull suddenly feeling like it was about to burst. Robert fisted the sheets, eyebrows furrowing as pain radiated through his head. The black of his eyelids turned darker, a shade so dark he felt he was about to somehow fall down, down into the deep abyss.

But suddenly, it relented.

He was in his four-poster again. He looked around the room, shifting to prop his back up against the pillow. Someone had opened the curtains to his bed, and the room felt so familiar, but somehow… off.

the colours, reds and golds, filled the room up to excess as usual, and stars in the night sky twinkled in the distance through the window. The bed next to his sported an old, beat-up trunk at its foot that he knew to be Ron's, and next to his sat Dean and Seamus' trunks respectively at their own beds. The same as before. However, in a previously empty corner of the room where the boys normally left dirty laundry, sat a fifth bed. Robert was curious enough about its appearance to pull the blankets off his body and stand, going to poke around at the trunk in front of it.

_Neville Longbottom,_ it read. Robert's face scrunched up. It was a name utterly unfamiliar to him.

"It's okay, Neville." A voice piped up from behind Robert. The boy flinched, back going rigid as he whipped back around. Somehow, two strange boys had entered the room without him even noticing, both sitting on Robert's bed. Robert realised with a start that the trunk at the foot of his own bed was now an entirely different colour as he took in the stranger's faces.

One had a round, chubby face and blond hair. He was such a contrast to the other boy, who was shorter, with a skinny face, black hair and glasses.

"I'm so done for." The cubby-faced boy sulked, face downcast. "Now the whole school's gonna know my greatest fear is_ Professor Snape."_

"It'll blow over." The second boy reassured him. "I bet everyone will forget about it in a week."

The first boy let out a low, helpless noise anyway, slumping down into himself as if he wanted to sink into the floor. Robert took a few steps forward towards the pair, not sure what he wanted to say but knowing that they most _certainly_ didn't belong in the Gryffindor boys dormitory. The floorboards squeaked beneath his bare feet as he moved, but the boys didn't make any indication that they had noticed him.

As suddenly as Robert had found himself in this strange situation, he felt a bizarre tug on his navel, as if some unseen force was trying to pull him away. It was much akin to the tugging of a portkey until his head grew fuzzy, a dull ache filling his brain as a buzzing sound filled his ears. Unused to the sensation, Robert scrunched his eyes closed, the two strange boys disappearing as his world grew black for a moment.

He stumbled as the ground beneath him grew unsteady.

"I think he's waking up!" Ron's voice shouted, in such close proximity it was as if he was speaking directly into Robert's ear. Robert's eyes opened again in shock to find that his surroundings had changed entirely.

His feet met with hard, old carpet, and he was on the Hogwarts Express. Through the windows of the compartment was only the black of night. In the cramped compartment stood several students, not yet dressed into their school uniforms. Ron, his sister Ginny, and Hermione Granger all stood to one side in the compartment. On the opposite end, Robert saw the cubby-faced boy from earlier, as well as a tall, pale man dressed in old shabby robes.

"Come on, up you get Mister Potter." The man said, helping a figure on the floor to sit up. It was the second boy from the dorm, only his glasses were askew and his skin looked a few shades paler.

"Excuse me?" Robert called out to them. It was then he suddenly realised that the compartment was very small, much too small for him to stand in it the same as them without touching any of them. He looked down to his body, and to his horror saw it clipping into the bodies of Ginny and Hermione Granger, the two standing closest to the door. It was as if he was a ghost. But invisible, trapped in some place where nobody could hear him.

Confirming this panicked suspicion, the occupants of the compartment did not acknowledge him. The adult wizard gave the boy on the floor a chocolate bar, to which the boy bit into, looking somewhat shell-shocked by whatever it was that had happened to him. The students in the room conversed with one another. Their voices came out inexplicably muffled, like they were so, so very far away, despite being inches from Robert. The man said something to them too, but his voice had turned equally as inaudible.

_This can't be happening. I must be dreaming. _Robert thought frantically to himself as he spun around in the compartment. He reached out a hand to the door in an attempt to get out, get _away_ from whatever it was that was happening, but it was no use. The latch didn't move in his hands. He remembered how his body had clipped through the girls and pushed his body against the door No luck. Looks like whatever kind of ghostly ability he had was limited to only working on people.

He looked back at his fellow students, scrutinizing their faces. The familiar ones, Ginny, Hermione and Ron, looked the same as ever. But the man, and the two other boys in the compartment and their identities completely eluded him. He watched the blond-haired boy, remembering that the black-haired one had called him Neville.

_Neville Longbottom,_ he committed to his memory.

Then, he turned to the second boy. He was wearing glasses, and green eyes peered out through a messy mop of hair to gaze at the shabbily-dressed man in the compartment. He chewed on the chocolate, much oblivious to the whirlwind of emotions churning in Robert's gut.

_Potter._ His name was _Potter._

"I think he's waking up!" Ron's voice reverberated through Robert's mind. He clutched at his ears, trying to protect himself from the noise. The Ron in the compartment had kept his mouth firmly closed, listening to something Hermione Granger was saying.

"Come on Rob, just wake up already." Seamus' voice rang in Robert's head.

And just like that, the floor disappeared from Robert's feet. The world around him turned into a grey mist, the people in the compartment disappearing before him. For a moment it felt like the whole world had stopped. A hand clutched his shoulder. Shaking it vigorously.

He opened his eyes.

Dean, Seamus, and Ron crowded him. He was back in Gryffindor tower, the top of his four-poster bed the backdrop to their heads floating in front of him.

"Blimey, mate." Ron said, visibly relieved. "Are you okay?"

"You sounded like you were just about havin' the _worst_ nightmare ever." Dean piped up, his face contorted into an expression of alarm.

Robert sat up, feeling sweat rolling off of him in buckets. The three other boys distanced themselves slightly, giving their friend space as he took a few deep breaths.

The boy on the bed shifted his gaze to his left. Some of what was undoubtedly Seamus' dirty laundry sat on the floor in the empty corner. Empty, like it had always been.

_Neville Longbottom. Potter._

"Are you… okay?" Ron asked, concern still coming off of him in waves, doubtlessly noticing his friend's disturbed expression.

"Yes." Robert croaked. "I'm sorry I woke you guys up."

He stared at the corner. "Just a bad dream. I already forgot it."

"Don't worry about it," Seamus said, going off to his side of the room and collecting some fresh school robes from his trunk. "Issa 'bout time for breakfast, anyway."

He and Dean became a flurry of activity in the dorm, rifling through their hastily packed trunks and running to and from the bathroom. Ron however, hesitated, still not having stepped away from Robert's bed.

"So…" He began awkwardly, hand rubbing the back of his neck. "Those dreams you were talking about…"

"Yeah," Robert said, voice still a little strained. "They're a bit much but…"

He trailed off, not sure how to proceed. "...They were never like… that before."

Ron nodded as if to himself, visibly uncomfortable, yet unsure how to deal with his friend's distress.

"Just… don't worry about it." Robert said. "We got the snakes and Snape to worry about today."

Ron groaned in despair at his words.

"Are you sure?" The boy still said.

Robert nodded, head still going a little fuzzy with the movement. "Yeah, I think… it was just silly dreams. Like Snape being my new stepfather. Stuff like that."

Ron gasped. _"That was your dream?_ Blimey Rob, no wonder you were screaming!" It was with those words that the mood shifted to something more lighthearted.

"Damn double potions." Ron huffed after he inspected his timetable. "And first thing in the morning? It's like they wanna _torture_ us."

Robert could barely stomach any food at all during breakfast. The boy with green eyes and glasses still occupied most of his mind. He had even frozen up when he looked in the mirror that morning, knowing his eyes so perfectly matched with the boy from his dream.

Except… was it only a dream? It was so real. So…

"Miss Perks!" Snape's voice broke into his thoughts. Robert flinched, shifting his gaze from the desk to the tall, dark figure looming over the student next to him across the aisle. He had been so distracted after entering potions class he hadn't even noticed it had begun.

"Sorry, Professor." Sally-Anne stuttered out, but it was no use. The potions master's beady eyes gleamed, lavishing the opportunity to be cruel to another Gryffindor.

"It appears that one of you has already decided to be a failure this year." His cutting words shot through the silent classroom. Robert watched the exchange, now firmly engaged. She sat in her usual chair, looking like she was trying to make herself as small as possible, wide eyes filled with fear.

Robert had heard from the students in older years that Snape liked to always have one student in his class to target specifically. Someone more sensitive than the other students.

Sally-Anne sniffled, all of the natural, sweet charisma she had in every other class gone the moment Professor Snape looked at her.

Robert didn't know what it was that made him do it. Idiocy, certainly. That old Gryffindor brashness. But there was something about returning to Hogwarts that year with the odd dreams in his brain, the visions of things that made no sense. Maybe it was just his lack of restful sleep making his brain short-circuit for a moment. Just long enough to say something he had been wanting to say for two whole years, but never had the courage to do.

"Leave her alone, Snape."

A few gasps sounded in the once silent room, Gryffindors and Slytherins alike all glancing at one another, shocked. Snape's body grew very stiff, as he moved his gaze from one victim to another. Fresh meat.

"Mister Potter." He growled. Ron let out a quiet noise that could only be described as a sound of terror, flinching away from the man as he stalked towards their table. Everyone sat with bated breath to see what would happen next. The Gryffindors with wide-eyed trepidation, the Slytherins on the edge of their seats in excitement.

Snape's eyes practically shone with malice as his shadow loomed over Robert. The boy gulped, heartbeat picking up.

"Looks like we have a _hero_ in this class." Snape glowered. "Such a shame that Gryffindor's new little saviour doesn't know how to keep up with the dress code."

Robert furrowed his brows in confusion as he looked down at his uniform. Surely he wasn't that tired in the morning that he had forgotten something?

"_What_ is that substance on your hands, Potter?" Snape barked. A whisper in the Slytherin corner broke out as Robert glanced at his hands.

"Paint stains, professor?" Robert said, meeting Snape's eyes with some effort.

"Seems Potter has forgotten one of the primary rules of potions safety." Snape sneered. "Magical paints, even simply stains, can cause unforeseen and often dangerous side effects to potions. I should have you in detention for every hour of class you cannot participate due to your idiotic hobby, Potter."

The words spilled out of Robert before he even knew what was happening."Seems that you, Professor, for all your knowledge of chemicals, still don't know how to tell magical and muggle paints apart."

The room was so silent one could hear a pin drop. Robert's eyes widened, shocked at his own words.

_Why did I say that?_ He thought furiously to himself. _I always stay quiet in potions! What's wrong with me?_

"Twenty points from Gryffindor for Potter's display of insolence."

Fay Dunbar let out a gasp, and a few other Gryffindors grumbled at the man's words. Zabini's gang began sniggering, Crabbe and Goyle seemingly barely containing themselves if their red faces were to mean anything.

Something shifted in Snape's eyes as he watched Robert frown. Robert was certain of what was to come next. Detention. Probably for a month, surely.

"It appears that the tight proximity you Gryffindors have with one another in this classroom has made your idiocy even worse. Potter, trade places with Nott. Permanently."

The Slytherins stopped laughing, instead freezing up in shock at their professor's words. At a silent table in the front of the classroom, two heads whipped backwards. Nott and Malfoy exchanged anxious glances, before Nott sprang to action, grabbing his books and bag.

Robert didn't have time to thank whatever gods were out there that he had somehow avoided detention, too busy exchanging shocked glances with his best friend.

"Oh no!" Ron exclaimed as Snape smugly made his way back to the chalkboard to jot down the day's lesson. "We're gonna be partnered up with _Slytherins!"_

The boy looked despairingly at Nott as the boy approached. Nott had an equally sullen look on his face.

"At least it's just them and not Zabini or Parkinson," Robert muttered as he shoved his books back into his open shoulder bag.

"But Malfoy used to be _terrible_ to everyone!" Ron whispered after Snape let out a sharp "silence!"

"It'll be fine." Robert only said before making his way to the front of the classroom. Snape gave him one final glower as he sat down on what was previously Nott's chair.

"Today you will be making, as per the subject of your summer essays, a shrinking solution. Given your doubtlessly _in-depth_ research on the potion, _which I expect to be on my desk at the end of this class_, you all should surely be competent enough to complete this potion today."

Quickly, the classroom became a flurry of activity. Some students frantically leafed through their textbooks to find the recipe for the potion at hand, and the more knowledgeable ones headed directly for the ingredients cupboard.

"Uh," Robert began, turning to face the boy sitting next to him. Malfoy watched him with cool grey eyes, an unreadable expression on his face.

It was there that Robert realised he hadn't even exchanged words with the other boy for more than a year.

"I remember there was daisy roots, rat spleen, um…" Robert trailed off as he stopped bothering to rack his brains for the information in his own hastily written summer essay, opening the potions book to where he had last bookmarked it.

"I know what's in it. Just wait here, Potter." Malfoy said curly, standing up and joining the growing line of students.

Robert sat awkwardly as he waited for his new partner to return. He let himself glance back to the opposite end of the classroom to meet eyes with Ron. Nott had similarly taken it upon himself to get the proper potions ingredients, and Ron looked at him a bit helplessly as the two sat apart from one another.

"_You'll be fine."_ Robert mouthed. Ron sent a grimace his way as Malfoy returned back to the shared table.

"You juice the leeches, I'll work with the shrivelfigs," Malfoy ordered as he sat down, not even deigning to glance at the instructions in the textbook. Robert looked down at the page doubtfully.

"But the leeches are step eight." He said. "Shouldn't I do the daisy roots first?"

"Leeches are hard to juice." Malfoy informed, voice even and polite as he opened the small jar titled _shrivelfigs._ "Besides, most people don't do a very good job of it at first, so you'll probably mess up the first few."

"I can juice leeches just _fine,"_ Robert said indignantly. "Give them to me."

Alas, he could not. The first leech was wiggly, and damn near impossible for the boy to handle without being bitten as he fumbled with it. Malfoy raised an eyebrow at him as they met eyes, already having added the shrivelfig blood to the slowly heating cauldron.

"Don't say anything Malfoy," Robert grumbled. The Slytherin only sniggered.

It took Robert seven leeches to get enough blood to satisfy Malfoy, despite the book saying only four. "I can't help that you're terrible at juicing them." The blond prat had only said as he added the recommended amount of wormwood to the cauldron, turning the potion to the exact shade of lavender it was supposed to be by step five.

"Honestly, Snape probably saved both you and Weasley's hides by making you switch places with Nott. I can't see the pair of you having the brains to get this done in time even on a good day." Malfoy said, stirring the potion in the cauldron carefully, stopping every now and again to inspect its colour. Robert rolled his eyes, letting the insults roll off of him. _Slytherins._

"I thought you were friends with Nott," Robert said, confused by Malfoy's use of the other boy's last name. But then again, he had only referred to Crabbe and Goyle by their last names in first year too, when he was friends with _them_. Robert glanced at the other Slytherins, all sitting away from the two outcasts of their house. That ship had clearly sailed quite a while ago now.

Though he never knew why.

"We're not friends." Malfoy supplied. "Not really."

Robert watched his ex-arch enemy continue stirring the potion. Compared to how the other boy acted in first year he was… utterly benign now. His hair was still slicked back in that ridiculous manner, and he still walked around with only the highest quality school supplies and knick-knacks, but in every other way he had changed.

"Hey Malfoy," Robert began, "about first year-"

"Give me the leech blood." Malfoy cut him off, snatching the small container filled with the red substance out of Robert's hands. He poured it in slowly as the cauldron changed to a deep ruby red.

A fit of old, bitter anger spread through Robert's veins at the other boy's dismissal.

"Look, you might not say anything now, but you were really terrible to everyone for a _whole year_ and you never once said sorry for anything!" Robert's voice rose in volume towards the end of his sentence, as the anger threatened to spill out.

Malfoy finally tore his gaze from the potion, appraising Robert. For a moment the blond looked ready to say something, but before either boy knew it Snape had crossed the floor to their table and began to loom over their cauldron.

Malfoy broke eye contact as Robert instinctively threw the next ingredient, a splash of cowbane, to the cauldron. The potion bubbled, turning a light pink.

"Acceptable." The potions master spat out before leaving.

Robert sent dark looks towards Malfoy for the next few minutes, waiting for him to speak. But the boy refused eye contact for the rest of the lesson, finishing up the potion before filling two glass phials with the concoction. The potion had turned out the exact shade it was supposed to be according to the textbook, Robert begrudgingly admitted to himself. The class ended right after, and Robert resigned himself to having to spend the year with a silent, unapologetic ponce. He grabbed his bag, shoved his textbook back into it, and launched towards the exit. He spotted Ron waiting for him in the corridor outside and was thinking only of their mutual complaining session in the great hall before someone quietly said his name behind him.

He turned around, and there was Malfoy, looking at the floor in a way that was much unbecoming of a pureblood.

"I'm sorry." The blond whispered before darting in front of him, disappearing out the door and down the corridor.

Robert was stunned silent as he watched him go. Whatever had happened to Draco Malfoy?

* * *

Now don't panic- I'm going to start going through some of Robert's Hogwarts years quite quickly in the next few chapters. To be perfectly honest with you all, I'm not that confident in writing young children convincingly, and while this won't be a flat out time skip, stuff does go by relatively fast. Apologies if it seems a bit rushed, I just feel like the more fun parts don't really make sense to introduce until Altair and Robert are a little bit older (but still Hogwarts age, don't worry). And yes I completely skipped second year, but really nothing much interesting there happened other than Malfoy going weirdly quiet and there being a conspicuous lack of Tom Riddle's diary (it would hardly take a rocket scientist to figure out why it never made an appearance given chapter 14). And don't worry about Altair. You'll find out what he's been up to very soon.


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